Strawberries are one of the most magical parts of summer, especially if they are fresh picked from the farm. But fresh picking or large farmstand purchases can mean a lot of manual labor, which is particularly difficult with delicate berries.
How do you remove the core of a strawberry — technically known as “hulling” a strawberry — without damaging the fruit? You use a strawberry huller.
What Is A Strawberry Huller?
A strawberry huller is a simple kitchen tool for digging the stem and core out of a strawberry. It’s designed to remove the inedible bits and leave as much of the strawberry unharmed as possible. It basically works by opening three or four sharp fork-like (or shovel-like) arms, extending them into the berry, and then shearing off the stem.
It’s sort of like the beak of an octopus biting down from the top… just without the arms.
To get the most out of the huller you need to fully push the button down and extend the arms into the berry. Then, when the arms meet, you need to twist. This will cut/twist out the core in a clean, smooth action.
Hullers work best on fresh, ripe or slightly underripe strawberries of medium to large size. It will not work well on wild strawberries, fraise de bois, or over-ripe strawberries.
What Else Does A Huller Do?
A strawberry huller isn’t able to do a whole lot of things aside from remove the stems from strawberries, but it does have more than one use. You can also remove the core from tomatoes, which is useful for vine-ripen varieties.
OXO Good Grips Strawberry Huller
Technically known as the OXO Good Grips Easy-Release Strawberry Huller and Tomato Corer (Model 11111900) doesn’t seem to be quite as popular as the Chef’n stem remover below, but it comes from a name we all know and I often recommend: Oxo.
Vibe by Chef’n Strawberry Stem Remover
The most popular and most recommended strawberry huller is this push-button stem remover by relatively unknown brand Chef’n. It’s available on Amazon and Target for about $7. It’s a simple design and much safer than the paring knife that you normally reach for. It’s dishwasher-safe and not too big for smaller strawberries (but it works best on bigger ones).
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