Apply Vegetable Oil Prior to Cutting Chiles to Avoid the Burn

The safest way to cut chiles without setting your skin on fire is to cut them while wearing rubber or latex gloves. If you don't have any in your home, rubbing on a good coating of vegetable oil can do the trick instead.

The vegetable oil tip comes to us by way the Helium, a community all about ethnic and international food. The reason this works is simple: capsaicin, the chemical that makes chile peppers hot and spicy foods spicy, is soluble in oil and fat. That's why everyone suggests you drink a glass of milk if you've eaten something really spicy and want to soothe the burn.