This Hack Makes Flipping Food in a Frying Pan So Much Easier

Whether’s it’s a fully loaded sandwich or a big pancake, I’ve had my fair share of mishaps flipping food — or at least attempting to — in a frying pan. Luckily I stumbled upon this incredibly simple hack for flipping anything in your kitchen, and I’m still kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner.

This trick comes from Donna, a wife and mother on TikTok who goes by the username @DonnaBonnana, and her husband Patrick, who used it for making a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s so easy: Instead of using the spatula to turn over the sandwich in the pan, Patrick simply holds the grilled cheese on the spatula, flips the frying pan upside-down so that it’s touching the untouched side of bread, and then sets the frying pan down. So straightforward!

@donnabonnana

Grilled cheese tip from my hubby Patrick. #over40 #husbandcooking #grilledcheese #ThisorThatSBLV

♬ Rasputin (Single Version) – Boney M.

While I personally don’t struggle with flipping grilled cheese sandwiches, I’ve definitely had issues in the past trying to grill sandwiches with a lot more filling, as well as pancakes. (To this day, I can’t properly turn over a pancake of any size!). As a result, there have been times when I’ve even avoided certain foods or dishes just because I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable mess and subpar results from a bad flip. It just didn’t seem worth it to me.

That’s where this hack really came in handy: I had a panini for lunch last week but don’t own a panini press, so I had to head over to the stovetop to make my meal. Instead of dealing with my usual (failed) attempts at keeping my tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella from sliding out of my bread during a flip, a quick turn of my frying pan kept everything in place. And guess what? It was delicious — and all in one piece.

I’m seriously going to be using this frying pan hack when flipping food all the time going forward!