If you’ve ever been to a health and wellness blog, or a natural living blog, or a site with cleaning tips, or a recipe blog, you’ve likely heard of apple cider vinegar. This versatile substance can be used for so many things…everyone is talking about it!
And today? I’m going to talk about it, too.
Vinegar comes in all sorts of forms, from plain vinegar to apple cider vinegar to tarragon vinegar…with plenty in between.
But first, a quick lesson in the difference between apple cider vinegar and unfiltered apple cider vinegar (because there is a difference!).
Apple cider vinegar has a mellow flavor, and is clear (it looks like apple juice). It has 5% acidity, which makes it a suitable vinegar for pickling and canning. It’s also great for cooking and cleaning.
Unfiltered apple cider vinegar, on the other hand, is vinegar in its purest form. It contains the “mother” of the vinegar, which is a natural compound created when the vinegar is made (it looks like little apple bits floating around). This vinegar is great for cooking and other health-related uses.
You can use vinegar for SO many things (hair conditioner! deodorant! face cleanser!), it would be impossible to list them all here. But, I am going to share a few of my favorite uses for Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar below.
- Cleaning. Mix 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar and 1 cup water (or, be like me and just pour random amounts into your squirt bottle – it still works) and use to clean counters, sinks, toilets, appliances, and even most types of floors!
- Washing fruits and veggies. Mix equal parts vinegar and a 3% hydrogen peroxide to make a cleaning rinse.
- Wash windows! Use it full strength, and wipe away streaks after the windows have dried.
- Drink it! Add a couple of tablespoons to your drink for more energy, better digestion, and even a metabolism boost (I just added some to my water after I read that…I’ll let you know how it goes). You can use either (filtered or unfiltered), but the unfiltered would be perfect for this.
- Canning.
- Get rid of ants! Mix equal parts vinegar and water and spray around the door jambs, windowsills, and any foundation cracks (or in my case, around the trashcan – this is where they seem to show up).
- Keep your car windows frost-free in the winter (not kitchen-related, but AWESOME). Mix three parts apple cider vinegar to one part water and coat the windows at night. It will keep frost from forming!
- Remove hard water spots. I soak the drip tray from my refrigerator’s water dispenser in vinegar to remove the build-up from our hard water.
- Make BBQ sauce.
- Make salad dressing. I have a recipe for you below!
Spinach salad with goat cheese, pine nuts, raspberries, and Raspberry Cider dressing.
Raspberry Cider Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup seedless raspberry preserves
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Whisk all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Put on the salad right before you are ready to eat it.
Notes
Apple cider vinegar is a kitchen staple with uses that extend way beyond the kitchen!
What are your favorite uses for vinegar?
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I use vinegar for everything!! Love to cook with it, but its great for cleaning windows too. I had no idea you could use it to get rid of ants!
I know! I’m totally going to try it this weekend…we always have ants creeping around the trashcan in our kitchen.
That dressing recipe looks amazing! Pinned it for later.
It really is so good…you’ll love it!
I love that you can cook and clean using vinegar! Thanks for sharing all these great tips.
I only use Heinz vinegar! In fact, I just made a dressing using Heinz Vinegar, too. 🙂
I didn’t have a clue that you could use apple cider vinegar to get rid of ants either. I’ll have to try that. My two favorite uses for apple cider vinegar are: 1. salad dressing (which is weird because I don’t really like salad, but the recipe I have makes any salad taste way better) and 2. to get rid of fruit flies (fruit flies love apple cider vinegar apparently). I’ll have to try the Raspberry Cider dressing and see how it compares to my Poppy Seed dressing that uses apple cider vinegar.
Poppy seed dressing is usually pretty amazing, but I think you’d like this one too! I like to think of salad as a vehicle for my dressing, rather than dressing as an accessory to my salad if you know what I mean. Love me some good salad dressing.
Looks super yummy! I love vinegar- even the smell! Nothing like cleaning with it too! 🙂
I love the smell of it, too! Especially after the floors have all been mopped with it. Yum.
That recipe looks delicious! I will have to give it a try!
I love apple cider vinegar for salad dressing. It’s a key ingredient in my family’s fave salad dressing recipe. I didn’t even think there were all these other uses for it!
If you google “uses for apple cider vinegar” your head will explode from ALL THE THINGS you can do with it…it’s crazy!
It gets rid of ants? Oh I must try that. We get ants a lot on our sun porch and I always worry about using poison to spray them because of Nick, but I go a little crazy when creepy crawly things invade my home.
I haven’t tried it yet I=but I am going to…I’ll let you know!