Food  

Is There A Way To Store Lettuce To Keep It Fresher Longer?

By Chinelo Eze

14 September 2022   |   3:10 pm

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Produce costs money, especially if you have to keep tossing away spoiled lettuce that you somehow managed to store in the back of your refrigerator. If you have the habit of buying stuff that keeps pushing your lettuce deeper and deeper into your fridge as the week wears on and you end up replacing the…

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Produce costs money, especially if you have to keep tossing away spoiled lettuce that you somehow managed to store in the back of your refrigerator.

If you have the habit of buying stuff that keeps pushing your lettuce deeper and deeper into your fridge as the week wears on and you end up replacing the sad-looking lettuce for another.

There are some storage tips and tricks that will help keep lettuce fresh, so, try them.

One of the simplest methods to add more vegetables to your diet is to purchase pre-washed, ready-to-eat leafy greens. In a clamshell container, place a paper towel on top of the greens, close it, and place it upside down in the refrigerator to keep your greens fresh. The paper towel should be replaced when it becomes damp.

After a while, when you open one of those lettuce clamshells, you discover mushy, wet greens at the bottom. The slimy lettuce is now at the top of the container where the paper towel can absorb all the moisture rather than at the bottom touching the other leaves. This can be tried on other vegetables, extending their lifespan.

However, the paper towel does not always prevent the lettuce from wilting or becoming slimy, even when it did last much past its best-by date. The paper towel is holding the moisture, so the slimy lettuce isn’t getting into contact with as many of the pieces around it which is the key.

Contrarily, when lettuce is stored right-side up, the slimy bottom bits touch every other item nearby and contaminate them.
Additionally, it is much simpler to remove any wilted or brown parts of lettuce when stored upside down. Since the lettuce at the bottom of the clamshell is currently fresher than the lettuce on top, you may simply remove the top layer to reveal a fresh layer of usable lettuce.

There is a technique for you to keep your leafy greens fresh. Wrap each individual head of lettuce with a piece of aluminium foil and place it in your refrigerator as opposed to keeping it in the bag it arrives in.

Just make sure to firmly wrap it back up after each usage because any exposed lettuce can quickly dry up.