Are you fed up with buying lettuce and it going wet, wilted and slimy after only a couple of days? Here are some tips to help keep your salad leaves fresh and crisp for 10 days!
We go through quite a lot of lettuce, especially now we have our 2 guinea pigs. So that I’m not wasting time and money and going back and forth to the shops to replace greens that have gone soggy, I’ve experimented with ways to keep them at their best. Following the tips below, I can easily keep my leaves fresh for a week and a half.
Are you ready for the secret?
There are different ways you can do it, but basically what it boils down to is:
Keep leaves dry
And here’s how to do it:
- Wash your lettuce (if it isn’t pre-washed), remove any damaged leaves, and chop (if it isn’t pre-chopped).
- Dry it thoroughly with a salad spinner or very gently with paper towel or a clean tea towel.
- Store your leaves with paper towel top and bottom. If you want to store pre-chopped bagged salad in the bag it came in, slide a piece of paper towel down each side of the bag and close the top. Alternatively, use a large plastic container with a paper towel on the bottom and on top.
- Store your leaves loosely. For a bag of salad, keep the main part of the bag quite loose and make sure nothing is crushing it in the fridge. The rigidity of a plastic container means leaves are well protected, which makes it a good choice.
- During the week, replace the paper towel if it feels particularly wet, and pick out any soggy leaves so that they don’t spoil the rest.
Extra Tips:
- If you have bought a whole lettuce, keep the head whole and unwashed right up until you need to use some, then follow the steps above.
- Make sure your lettuce doesn’t get pushed right to the back of the fridge – it is likely to freeze there and then it’s ruined!
- Iceburg and Romaine (Cos) lettuce stay crisp for longer than other types.
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