The Safest Way to Open a Can Without a Can Opener

Maybe your can opener is broken, lost, or buried in a moving box. Maybe your hotel room or vacation rental simply doesn’t have one. Whatever the case, you might find yourself eager to tuck into a can of baked beans, only to find that you have no way of actually breaching its thin metal lid.

But, as Country Living explains, the lid is much flimsier than most of the other metal utensils in your kitchen. And while you may be inclined to reach for the biggest, sharpest one—say, a butcher’s knife— to open the can, you can actually get the job done without stabbing it like a murderer in a hokey horror film.

Your best bet is a spoon. First, grab the spoon below the handle so just the point is visible under your pinky finger. Then, position that point on the rim of the can, right where you’d usually place a can opener, and start pressing it back and forth along that same spot. It shouldn’t take long for a small hole to appear. Dig the point of the spoon into that hole, and then saw your way around the rim of the whole can (or at least around enough of the perimeter to make it easy to bend back the lid). The edge of the can will be jagged, so you’ll still have to be careful in order to avoid injury—but it’s safer than using a knife.

You can watch YouTuber DaveHax demonstrate the technique in the video below.