Ok so I’m cheap
If you’re single like me, and you do not eat a lot of home made salads, then you probably don’t go through a head of lettuce quickly enough to avoid it wilting or going bad another way on you. I’m here to tell you the secret to keeping a head of lettuce quite fresh for more than a week in your refridgerator. What you say, impossible! But no my friends it is true.
First when you bring it home from the store (do buy the freshest you can - be picky ) run it under cold water - or better still submerge it in cold water for a few minutes then drain. Do NOT use a salad spinner to drain off hte excess cold water and do not seperate the leaves from the stem. Wrap the whole head in paper towels and put in a ziploxk bag and seal. Stick in your fridge - that’s it. When you need some lettuce remove from bag, unravel the wet paper towel carefully and remove what you need - wash and spin at this point just what you asre going to use. Re-wrap the lettuce, zip it back up and put back in the fridge. Depending on how fresh the lettuce was to start with you can keep it crisp for close to 2 weeks this way. This works great on loose leaf lettuce varieties. I haven’t tried it on iceberg because…….. well I just never buy the tasteless stuff.
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Comments
Comment from Doug Alder
Time: 9/15/2004, 6:45 am
The reason for the paper towels is they keep the leaves from touching platic and they will alo keep the lettuce moist. You’ll find that keeping the leacves from touching plastic will keep them alive longer. Make certain when you rinse or soak the lettuce head that you drain it well afterwards. All you’re trying to do is crisp up the lettuce in cold water and rinse off any loose dirt, not store it in a pool of water. You want the paper towels to be wet. That will keep the lettuce firm.
Comment from Cyndy
Time: 9/14/2004, 10:19 pm
I hadn’t tried the paper towels and I never used to buy ziplock bags either until I tried storing lettuce. Just the ziplock helps quite a bit. I’ll have to give it a try with the paper towels, which I also never used to buy until I got a cat! Sometimes those products I swore off are useful afterall.