Storing Lettuce
Its early evening and you're hungry for something to eat but you aren't sure what. Aha, a salad sounds good, doesn't it? So you rush to your refrigerator and pull out the lettuce you bought a few days ago only to find that it is brown and rusty and mushy to the touch. What now? Bet this happens more often than not. Storing lettuce doesn't have to be a chore. You can get good, fresh, crisp green lettuce any time, all the time when you know what to do.
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Storing Lettuce-Not a Chore Anymore
With the cost of everything going up, you don't want the money you spent on lettuce to go to waste. Today, not only can you buy heads of lettuce but also bags of lettuce with some of the fixings already in them. But if not stored correctly, all of it will go in the trash. And it doesn't take very long for salad to go bad.
Buying a fresh head of lettuce is one way to make sure your lettuce is good and crisp. When you purchase bagged salad lettuce, someone or something has already chopped the lettuce with a metal object which causes the edges to turn brown more quickly. If you look at the grocery store, you can often see the lettuce is already starting to turn brown and it hasn't even left the store.
Ever walk down the produce aisle at the store and find you are getting wet? Stores often mist their produce to keep it moist. But most refrigerators don't come equipped with this feature and you really are better off with lettuce stored dry. How do you get it dry after you have rinsed it off when you get home? Before storing your lettuce leaves, dry them off with a paper towel. And presto, fresher lettuce is now available.
A proper storage container for lettuce is a dry, re-sealable, plastic bag. Before placing your lettuce in the bag though, you want to line it with a dry paper towel to collect any moisture that gathers in the bag. By doing so, you can keep your lettuce fresh for about a week. Isn't that amazing?
Most refrigerators come with crisper drawers, so store your lettuce there. You also want to keep your temperature in the middle range of the temperature scale for your refrigerator. If the temperature is too high, the lettuce leaves might freeze with the moisture on them and become clear and mushy. Also, if you have a humidity dial, you want to set it on low to lessen the chance of your lettuce leaves getting moisture on them.
Store your salad toppings in separate storage units. Salad dressing and certain toppings will increase the moisture on the lettuce and make it turn faster. Ever gone to the refrigerator and get a salad that you prepared earlier to find that your lettuce is wet and nasty? It looks disgusting and the toppings probably look that way too thanks to the lettuce being bad.
Think you want a salad? Proper storage can make that salad craving a reality not a dream. Go ahead and buy that lettuce and munch away.
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