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I often find myself preparing certain foods that contain viscous ingredients like honey and tahini sauce. For instance, one of my dressings contains both of these, which I currently measure out in a large measuring cup before blending everything together.

The first difficulty arises once I have painstakingly measured out one item, say the tahini, and I then need to measure the honey. I could either estimate the amount of honey and pour it into the same measuring cup, or I could try to scoop out the tahini from the measuring cup, likely leaving a considerable amount of the stuff behind, wash the cup, and reuse it for the next item. Both options are less than optimal.

The next problem I encounter is with ingredients of which I need to add so little, that the lowest marking on my measuring cup isn't low enough to tell me how much of it I have added. Granted, it wouldn't be too big of a problem to estimate the amount of, say, olive oil I need to add to something. However, if I'm dealing with a spicy or otherwise particularly potent ingredient, then this would also be an important consideration.

Therefore, my question is whether there is a better technique or piece of equipment I could use to make working with viscous ingredients a little easier. My first thought was to search for 'cooking syringes' online, which I couldn't find. (Meat syringes came the closest, but this obviously isn't their intended purpose)

Vaelus
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Andrew Jackson
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5 Answers5

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A scale is the better (best) tool for the job. That way, you just need to place the bowl, pot, or pan directly on the sale. Zero it, and add your viscous ingredient. It is fairly easy to find gram or ounce equivalents for most items online, or by asking an Alexa, Siri, or Google. Bonus: no clean up of measuring cups or spoons!

moscafj
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Moscafj's answer is the right one IMO.

However, an additional technique that works reasonably well for viscous sticky substances is to apply a fine coating of oil to the measurement implement before trying to scoop out the viscous/sticky substance. I usually use a drop of a neutral oil, such as canola, or even a tiny amount of butter. You do need to be careful to coat all surfaces (including the rim) that will come into contact with the substance to ensure that it won't stick anywhere.

You just then need patience to allow the substance to flow out of the measuring implement. Having things like honey or molasses warm helps with the viscosity.

Be warned that it'll only work for a couple of repeated measurements before you need to re-coat.

bob1
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A bit of a frame-challenge: Just measure by eye/feel.

Of course, this is context-dependent. In some settings (e.g. commercial or other large-scale kitchens, or for a few kinds of home baking) high-accuracy or high-consistency measurement really is important, which is much easier with a scale than by eye; in such settings, moscafj’s advice of measuring by weight is spot on.

But for most ingredients in most home cooking, high-precision measurements are a red herring — recipes are robust to small changes in proportions, and the imprecision in the measurement is small compared to the difference between different sources/brands/batches of an ingredient. For tahini, for instance, the difference between 100g from two different brands can be much more than the difference between 90g and 110g from the same jar, and measuring by eye can be at least that accurate, with just a bit of practice. And certainly, none of these will be the difference between a good and a ruined dressing.

So much of the time, in most home cooking, measuring by eye is just as good — don’t worry about the exact weight or volume, but measure as something like “three tablespoons of tahini”, saving the need for any kind of separate measuring receptacle.

PLL
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Yes, there is a piece of equipment, it's called a "push out measuring cup". These are designed for gooey substances, like yogurt, peanut butter, honey, or caramel. There's also a mini one for smaller quantities.

1 cup push-out measuring cup

FuzzyChef
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I find that slightly heating honey in the microwave lowers its viscosity. Same for refrigerated sauces.

Phil Freedenberg
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