For a long time I would only eat pomegranates in the bathtub. Or outside. Or at the very least wearing all black and standing over the kitchen sink. Needless to say, I didn’t eat a lot of pomegranates. They’re oh-so-delicious and oh-so-good for you, but could they possibly be any messier to eat? And as much as I love that gorgeous wine-red hue, I really don’t want everything within a 10-foot radius stained with spatters of it. Well, luckily for me I found a much easier, much cleaner way to get those tasty seeds (or arils, I suppose, if we’re getting technical) out of their casing. I owe this invaluable piece of knowledge to Mr. Alton Brown. The story begins, as many thrilling tales do, one afternoon while I was getting my dose of food porn Food Network. Alton Brown, in all of his nerdy awesomeness, was on the screen teaching me everything I never knew I needed to know about pomegranates. Then, in the midst of all of the interesting but weird facts that are now long forgotten, he pulled out this little technique for quickly, easily, and cleanly getting the good stuff out of the pomegranate. And from then on I’ve lived happily ever after as a pomegranate junky. Since we’re currently right in the middle of pomegranate season, I thought I’d share this little trick with all of you in hopes that it will make your life a little easier (and cleaner) or maybe that you’ll invite pomegranates back into your life in case you’d written them off as too much work. Feel free to share your own tips and tricks for getting the edible gems out of this tasty fruit in the comments below.

De-Seeding a Pomegranate

Cut the pomegranate into quarters on a plate or a cutting board that you don’t mind staining. I’ve always been able to get the stains out of my cutting board after a few washes, but better safe than sorry!

Fill a large mixing bowl with cool water and transfer the pomegranate pieces to the bowl. Grab a piece, hold it under the water, and manipulate it with your hands as though you’re trying to turn it inside out. This will expose more of the arils.

Keeping the pomegranate quarter under water, start scraping the arils from the white pith, pulling the pomegranate apart as you go to get to all of the arils. Any juice spray will be contained by the water in the bowl rather than staining your kitchen. Repeat with the remaining quarters.

The arils will sink to the bottom and the pith will float to the top, so simply skim off the floating bits with a skimmer or slotted spoon then drain the seeds in a colander. Voila! Delicious pomegranate seeds with very little mess in about 5 minutes.