Fresh salads are always on the menu in Summer. Crunchy lettuce and zingy fresh ingredients make the perfect dinners for these hot months, when temperatures are soaring inside our boiling houses.
But if you do your food shop on a weekly basis, the base ingredient can often be spoiled by the time you’re ready to make the salad. So, if you store lettuce with one kitchen item, it may be last for up to ten days according to experts at Hitchcock Farms. The secret is most likely already in your kitchen, and takes just a few minutes to prepare.
This trick works best with romaine and loose-leaf lettuce, because the hack involves cleaning the lettuce, but iceberg doesn’t need to be washed until use.
First, rinse the leaves to remove any bacteria, dirt, or organic contaminants, and then pat the leaves down to remove any moisture. While the internal moisture helps keep the leaves crisp, any external moisture can make them wilt.
Then grab a few paper towels and lay the clean, dried leaves on them. After they are laid out, carefully fold and roll the leaves in the paper, and place them in a plastic bag.
Press out any air, seal it tight, and store in a lettuce-only drawer in the fridge, which the food experts said can help it last for a week to ten days.
Lettuce isn’t the only food that can spoil quickly, especially in the heat. Food experts have revealed a hack to keep bananas fresh in the heat, given that they should not be stored in the fridge.
By simply using some kitchen foil, it can help extend their shelf life in the sweltering conditions. There’s also a trick to keep blueberries fresher for longer, as they can spoil extremely quickly.
