This Ketchup Packet Trick Could Change How You Eat Fries Forever

Updated on 1/24/2014 at 8:44 PM

We've got a new partnership with Foodbeast, who will be sharing breaking food news, trendsetting recipes, and more with us regularly. Today, Elie Ayrouth shows us how to eat ketchup and fries on the go.

We've all been in the car faced with the same dilemma, how are you gonna get your fries wet with some delicious ketchup?

Try to squeeze a perfect amount onto a single fry? False — not even a gymnast could tightrope a french fry with a line of ketchup without inevitably spilling some. That never works:

Maybe you like to make a cute ketchup puddle on a napkin? I used to do that, until I realized every time I let ketchup sit in a puddle on my lap or the dashboard, it would soak through the napkin. Trust, there's nothing sexy about ketchup stains on your pants, or the horrid smell of sticky ketchup in your car:

Probably the biggest culprit of my ketchup-eating missteps involves drizzling the red goodness across all the fries in the carton and then periodically digging my fingers in. The problem with this method is the inevitable ketchup layer that ends up all over my fingers — ain't nobody got time for that, or wet wipes:

Then during a recent road trip, I turned to our video director Marc just after a recent fast food pitstop, and I caught that Lebanese MacGyver dunking his fries one at a time into an open ketchup packet and I nearly ran my car off the road from shock.

The method was so simple, so smooth, and so ridiculously efficient: just dunk your fry into the open ketchup packet:

All Marc did was rip open a slightly larger corner of the ketchup than advertised and he had enough insertion room for 1 – 3 fries per dunk.

After I inquired a bit further, he explained that the method was valuable for two reasons.

One, it allowed him to get a perfect coat of ketchup on every fry. Not too much, just a glaze.

Two, there was absolutely no mess on his fingers, his car or his clothes, ever. Even if he accidentally dropped the packet, since all the ketchup is self-contained within the tiny pouch, he could just pick it up and continue eating with no ketchup mess.

Fancy ketchup packet usage game: changed.

Remember, no eating and driving in New Jersey!