Wrestling with rock-hard butter that tears your toast? A surprisingly simple kitchen tool might hold the solution: a handheld strainer.

Numerous food bloggers and kitchen enthusiasts on TikTok have demonstrated how scraping a strainer across a block of cold butter creates easily spreadable shreds.

Cookbook author and lifestyle YouTuber Dzung Lewis, known for her Honeysuckle channel, recently put this method to the test, calling it the "BEST Butter Gadget Everybody already has." Her video showcasing the technique quickly gained traction, accumulating hundreds of thousands of views.

In the video, Lewis describes the grated butter as resembling "butter hairs" and praises the hack's effectiveness. She gives it a perfect 10/10 rating.

While many commenters pointed out their typical use of strainers for tea, others chimed in with their own preferred butter-softening methods, including using a potato peeler to create thin, spreadable slices. Some even challenged Lewis to try the strainer technique on cheese.

The origin of this viral hack seems to trace back to a TikTok user, @Roxy.369, whose video from September 2022 garnered tens of millions of views. While some viewers expressed concerns about cleaning the strainer afterward, the overall response has been overwhelmingly positive, with many praising the method's simplicity and effectiveness.

This unconventional approach to dealing with cold butter has garnered attention from various corners of the internet, including regional grocery store chain Kroger. It offers a quick and readily available solution to a common kitchen frustration.