When I’ve squeezed the final ounce of that sweet and tangy tomato dipping sauce out of the container, I’m not quite ready to toss it into the recycling bin. An empty ketchup bottle is one of the most underrated and useful tools in the kitchen. So after a thorough wash in soapy water to remove any lingering flavor or aroma, I’m ready to fill it back up with another beloved condiment.
Fill an Empty Ketchup Bottle with Sour Cream
Squeeze bottles are a restaurant chef’s best friend for adding toppings and sauces to plates, and I’ve often thought that they’d be so helpful for dispensing sour cream. It is easier to top tacos and measure exactly the right amount for my favorite sour cream cookie bars from a squeezable container, but sour cream is most often sold in plastic tubs. That’s why anytime I have an empty ketchup bottle, I fill it with sour cream instead of tossing it out.
Transforming an empty ketchup bottle into a sour cream dispenser works with both the standard and upside-down-style ketchup bottles that have a silicone valve with a cross-shaped opening because sour cream is relatively thick.
Only recently have some brands begun offering squeezable sour cream packaging. The trouble is that the very same sour cream often costs more per ounce in this upgraded packaging. At my local Walmart in the Tampa, Florida, area, a tub of Daisy sour cream costs 16.5 cents per ounce, while the squeezable pouch of Daisy sour cream costs 21 cents per ounce. If you buy sour cream in bulk or make it at home, the savings can be even greater. I’d rather be smart about the resources I have on hand, like reusing an empty plastic ketchup bottle, than pay for specialty packaging that quickly finds its way to the trash.
