Keeping my lettuce and other vegetables and fruits fresh is very important to me. I find it to be a total waste to have to throw out my veggies because of not getting to use them all up before they start going bad.
There are quite a number of ways to keep your produce fresh. So I am sharing with you three ways to keep your lettuce fresh. One will keep it for up to a month, and I’ll share fifteen more ways to keep other vegetables, herbs and fruits fresh.
Lettuce Wrapped With Paper Towel
Moisture and air help to make lettuce go bad quickly. In order to keep it fresh, you want to prevent as much air from and moisture from reaching your lettuce.
Wrap your lettuce in paper towel, place it in a dry bag, and keep it in the fridge. The paper towel will serve two purposes by absorbing any moisture in the bag and keeping air off the lettuce.
Parsley Under A Bag
Keep parsley fresh by storing in a jar of water in the fridge. To prevent too much cold air in the fridge from wilting the parsley, place a plastic bag over the parsley in the jar of water. You can use a rubber band to keep it in place.
How To Keep Parsley Fresh
How to properly store fresh parsley to make it last much longer.
Instructions
Take a regular-sized mason jar, and fill with water to about halfway up. Room temperature water is best to use.
Place the parsley in the jar of water.
Only the stems should be in the water, as you don't want the leaves to get soaked too.
Cover the parsley in the jar of water with a plastic bag.
You can use a rubber band to hold the bag in place over the jar of parsley. Store in the fridge.
Cucumber In Foil Wrap
Cucumbers can stay for a good amount of days before they start going bad. But if you want to keep them much longer, you are going to have to help them out.
Wrap your cucumbers in aluminum foil wrap. This method is best for when you are storing your cucumbers in the fridge. If you cut off a piece of cucumber, ensure that the exposed part is properly covered with foil wrap.
Lime/Lemon And Salt In Jar
I used to think that limes and lemons are good at surviving for very long. Then I started observing and realized that they do tend to go bad after a few days.
For lemons and limes that you won’t be using in beverages, cut in the middle, stuff them with salt, and keep them in a jar in your fridge. You can use these for household cleaning purposes and for cooking.
Thyme In Water
Thyme gives good flavor to food, whether it is dried or not. But nothing beats the flavor of fresh thyme for me. Although, it can be tricky to prevent thyme from getting dried up quickly.
An easy way to keep thyme fresh is to store it in water. Just put some water in a jar, and put the roots of the thyme in the water. You can keep this out of the fridge, and it will last a few days. But for better results, it is best to store in the fridge.
Celery In Foil Wrap
In order to keep celery fresh, you will need to prevent air from getting on to it. Especially at both ends, as that is where your celery would start going bad from.
Wrap your celery in foil wrap, and keep it in the fridge. Even if you don’t wrap it all up, make sure that you put some foil wrap on both ends to prevent air from penetrating them.
Damp Paper Towel For Green Onions
Greens onions are the opposite of most other fresh produce that doesn’t survive for long with moisture and air. Green onions need moisture and if possible a cool environment. But If you are keeping them in the fridge, the air in there is a bit too harsh for them. So they will start to wilt quickly.
What you can do is to dampen a piece of paper towel, wrap the green onions in, place in a ziplock bag, and store in the fridge. The damp paper towel will keep the green onions moist and the bag with keep off the air from the fridge.
Ginger In Jar Of Water
You can keep ginger fresh by storing them in some water. Clean up the ginger, chop them, put in a mason jar, add some water and keep in the fridge. It’s best to cover the jar.
Plastic Wrap And Lettuce
If you have taken out some lettuce out of the fridge to serve or make a salad, and you want to keep it fresh before you are ready to start eating, put it in a bowl and wrap it with plastic wrap. You can even add a place a piece of paper towel on top of the lettuce under the plastic wrap for better results.
Store Tomatoes Face-Down
Your ripe tomatoes can last longer outside of the fridge if you store them face-down. This means that you will be hiding the stem section of the tomatoes.
When the stem area is exposed to air, it causes the tomatoes to start going bad. So you always want to hide this part away from air when keeping ripe tomatoes outside of the fridge.
Separate Fresh Produce
I did this trick just weekend, and I was pleased with how things turned out. Sometimes when fresh produce are grouped together, heat is trapped between them, and this will their shelf life to lessen.
If you are in a hurry and don’t have time to properly pack your fresh produce, space them out on a counter or flat surface. This will prevent heat from building up among them, and also prevent them from squeezing each other.
Banana And Foil Wrap
To make bananas last longer, you need to prevent air from penetrating the stem as much as possible. Easily do this by wrapping the stem on a bunch of bananas with foil wrap. You can keep them outside of the fridge or inside if you want.
Garlic In Oil
Put some cloves of garlic in a jar. Add a generous amount of cooking oil or olive oil. Then add some salt. Cover the jar properly, and store in the refrigerator.
This will keep the cloves of garlic fresh, and you won’t have to be cleaning up garlic when you are ready to cook. Just grab a jar, take some cloves and use as you wish.
How To Keep Garlic Fresh
An easy way to cloves of garlic fresh in the refrigerator.
Instructions
Properly peel some cloves of garlic, and clean them up properly.
Put the cloves of garlic in a jar of oil. You can use any cooking oil for this purpose. However, olive oil is a very good option.
Add some salt to the jar of oil and cloves of garlic. This will be helping to preserve them and keep them fresh.
Cover the har properly, and store in the fridge. When you are ready to use some garlic for cooking, just take some cloves from the jar and use as you desire.
Onions In Pantyhose
Onions don’t go bad very easily. And they can last for very long. But keeping them stacked on each other can limit their shelf life, as they will get squeezed and heat will get trapped between them.
You want to keep onions in a dry and cool environment to keep them fresh for as long as possible. You can do this by storing them in pantyhose, and hanging the pantyhose in your kitchen or pantry.
Lettuce In A Jar
Keep your lettuce fresh for two weeks up to a month. This method is simple. You will need to wash your lettuce, dry it and chop it as you would to make your salad.
Then store the chopped lettuce in jars that are properly covered. Keep those jars in the fridge until you are ready to eat your lettuce. It’s best to eat all the lettuce from a jar once it is open.
You can make this method even more effective by adding a piece of paper towel to the jar to absorb moisture. Just take a piece of paper towel, fold it and place it on top of the lettuce in the jar.
A Simple Way To Make Your Lettuce Last Longer
Making your fresh lettuce and salad vegetables last for up to a month.
Materials
- Fresh Lettuce
Tools
- Mason Jar
- Refrigerator
Instructions
- Wash and clean lettuce properly.
- Remove brown edges and withered leaves.
- Dry lettuce as much as possible.
- Chop lettuce as you would for your salad.
- Place lettuce in clean and dry mason jar.
- Cover jar properly.
- Place in fridge and keep jar closed until you are ready to eat your salad.
Greens Wrapped In Kitchen Towel
If you haven’t got time to go through many different steps, but you want to keep some greens fresh, wrap them in a clean and dry kitchen towel. And as usual, keep them in the fridge.
Potatoes And An Apple
To prevent your potatoes from sprouting roots before you are ready to eat them, place an apple in the container with them. I don’t know the science behind this one, but it seems to work.
Cucumber In Paper Towel
Paper towel is really handy when it comes to helping to keep vegetables and fruits fresh. It helps to absorb the moisture that makes them go bad quickly.
You can use a piece of paper towel to keep your cucumbers fresh too. Just wrap them properly with paper towel and store them in the fridge. Use a couple of layers of paper towel, so it won’t be easily removed, or become soaked quickly by moisture.
How To keep Vegetables, Herbs, And Fruits Fresh
Kitchen tips and tricks for keeping herbs, fruits, and vegetables fresh.
Instructions
- Store lettuce in a covered jar in the fridge.
- Cut limes and lemons in the middle, stuff with salt, and store in a covered jar in the fridge.
- Wrap cucumbers in foil wrap, and store in the fridge.
- For ripe tomatoes, store them face-down to prevent air from penetrating the stem area.
- Place parsley in a jar of water, and cover with a plastic bag in the fridge.
- Separate fresh produce to prevent heat from building up between them.
- Wrap green onions in a piece of damp paper towel, and store in a ziplock bag in the fridge.
- Store onions in pantyhose to prevent them from squeezing each other, and to also prevent heat from getting trapped between them.
All the best with keeping your vegetables, herbs, and fruits fresh.
17 Comments
This lettuce storage solution is genius! Thank you. Throwing away lettuce is a pet peeve of mine!
Thank you Cindy! Glad you found this tip helpful 🙂
Does the lettuce need to be completely dry, and if so what method do you use?
Hi Ann
No, the lettuce does not need to be completely dry. But make sure to get rid of as much water as possible.
This is avery informative website
Thank you, Kimberly. Glad you were able to find useful information here 🙂
Fun site!
Thank you so much, Bev! I am glad you like my blog, and I do appreciate your feedback 🙂
I’ve found that packing it loosely between paper towels in plastic container and turning it over every couple of days will extend shelf life
Totally missed your reply & to others. Stupid phone acting crazy. Been doing this trick for years. 👍
It works like a charm, thank you.
Best way & easy way to keep any lettuce head fresher wrap a paper towel around & put either in plastic bag or bowl with lid doesn’t matter. Same with shredded lettuce but fold paper towel in half & close in bag. Lasts a lot longer.
This is a wonderful advice, I always do the plastic bags, but your idea is much better, thank you so much!
Valuable advice here! This is how we used to learn from our mothers and grandmothers! Now we learn from blog posts on Pinterest! 😀 Valuable post–thanks!
Good afternoon!! I just found this post. I sooo can not wait to try it out.
I was curious, do you think that the jar method would work for a store bought salad mix?
Thanks a bunch. Have a beautiful day
Hi Jon 🙂
I think it could work if the vegetables are not moist. If the salad is made up of mostly leafy veggies, keeping them in a jar in the fridge should keep them for a while.
Thanks for visiting and reading!
Love your ideas. Especially liked the garlic in oil idea. Thanks for sharing all your ideas