ADVERTORIAL
An Electric Jar Opener Holds the Jar Steady and Turns the Lid for Me, and I Buy Jam and Pickles Again
Evelyn B. had quit buying pickles and pasta sauce, and her jam waited on the counter for her husband to open. All three are back in her kitchen now, and she opens them with an electric jar opener that holds the jar and turns the lid.
October 30, 2026 | 4 min read
Last night I opened a new jar of pasta sauce myself, without twisting the lid.
A JarEase did the twisting. It's an electric jar opener that goes on top of the jar.
For most of last year, the jam waited on the counter until somebody came home to open it.
Both my thumbs have arthritis now, and a lid that's on tight won't turn for me.
You set the JarEase on the lid and press the button. Its outer jaws hold the jar steady, its inner jaws grip the lid and turn it with a motor, and it stops on its own when the seal lets go.
Buying less
The pickles went first, and then the pasta sauce.
I'd tried the dish towel, and I'd tried the flat rubber grip my daughter sent. Both of them give you a better hold on the lid, and then they wait for you to supply the strength, and the strength was the part I didn't have. Half the time the whole jar turned in my other hand along with the lid.
A towel and a rubber grip still need a hand that can twist. Mine can't.
I stopped putting those jars in my cart, and by the time I noticed, I hadn't bought pasta sauce in most of a year.
Waiting all afternoon
Most days, the jars were opened when Ed came home. The jam I'd wanted at breakfast and the pickles I'd wanted with lunch sat on the counter like a little row of chores.
More than once, when he finally got in, I didn't WANT the pickles anymore.
Asking is a small thing once, and a different thing every SINGLE day.
I was standing in my OWN kitchen, where I've cooked for forty-six years, and I couldn't get at what was in the jars without somebody else's hands.
Nothing complicated
I didn't want anything complicated. I wanted to make breakfast and dinner without waiting for anybody to come home.
And I wanted the jar open with about as much fuss as the butter knife.
The jaws do the twisting
Underneath the JarEase are two sets of jaws. The outer ones close around the jar and hold it steady, so it doesn't turn along with the lid the way it did with the towel. The inner ones grip the lid itself and turn it.
It's made for lids from about an inch and a quarter to three and a half inches across. That covers the jars I buy, from the little jam jars to the wide ones the marinara comes in.
I press the green button and wait for it to stop.
The morning the JarEase came, the first jar I opened was the strawberry jam, with the toast still warm.
That night Ed looked on the counter for the jam and found it open in the refrigerator door.
Jam at breakfast, sauce at dinner
Nothing dramatic changed.
I have jam on my toast again. On the nights I make pasta, I open the sauce myself. The pickles are back in the door of the refrigerator, and I buy all three again.
"I don't want to wait for someone to help every time I open a jar of jam or pasta sauce. I just want to keep preparing the foods I enjoy."
The green button
There's probably a jar in your cupboard right now that's waiting for somebody else's hands.
It took $39.99 to stop lining jars up on the counter for my husband.
I'll open the new jar of dill pickles the minute I want one.
Who opens their jars
After the operation on my wrist, I'd ask the young man who bags at the grocery store to crack my jars open before they went in the sack. Then I'd hurry to use them up. Now they come home sealed, and they stay that way until the day I'm cooking with them.
My wife's grip is no better than mine, and a tight jar used to go back and forth across the kitchen between us until one of us got it loose, or neither of us did. Now whoever's cooking sets it on the jar and presses the button, and the jar never leaves the counter.
My father used to call me to drive over and open things for him, mostly his jars of pickled beets. I sent him one of these in the spring. He still calls most nights, but now it's to tell me what he's cooking.