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How to Eat Takeout Food on a Plate Without Dirtying Any Dishes

Fried rice in a takeout box with chopsticks.

Ordering delivery or takeout is an event. Most of the effort is put into actually choosing a joint to order from and figuring out what you want, so when you finally get the food, you don't want to have to worry about anything else—including dishes.

You'll usually get chopsticks or plastic cutlery from the restaurant, but they never give bowls or plates. Depending on how much they compacted that food into the takeout box, it can be fairly difficult to get out, especially if it's Chinese and your chopsticks skills aren't up to snuff. Plus, if you're sharing, a plate makes so much more sense.

Chopsticks holding a takeout box with noodles and a red pagoda illustration.

But that's okay, because for super lazy folks like me who don't want to wash any dishes, there's a little trick to make those classic Chinese takeout containers more than just greasy food receptacles.

Just take the takeout box and rip it where it's all glued together.

Hands opening a takeout food container.

Then fold it out nicely into a plate for easier access to your grub.

A person preparing to eat a plate of noodles.

And that's all there is to it. Check out Foodbeast's video below to see the whole process, if you actually need it. By now, you're probably already ripping up your Chinese takeout boxes up and watching Netflix.

If for some reason you can't consume a whole carton of Chinese takeout food by yourself, you'll probably want to throw it back in the fridge.

Well, good thing you ripped up that cardboard container, because it's not good enough to store your leftovers. You'll have to dirty a plastic or glass storage container, but it'll make your leftovers taste so much better the next day, instead of all stale and dried up.

Just make sure that when you reheat them in the microwave, that you know what you're doing. And if you leave it in the fridge for too long, well, there are ways to beat the fuzz.

Chinese takeout image via Shutterstock

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