How to store cut lettuce

Chopped romaine lettuce will stay crisp and fresh for 7-10 days when vacuum-sealed into a glass Mason jar. It must be stored in the refrigerator.

If you don’t want your lettuce turning brown once it is cut or torn, simply give it a weak lemon juice and water bath. It is so simple that it is hard to improve upon. By the way, “Fruit Fresh”, a product designed to keep fruits and vegetables like lettuce from turning brown, is mostly citric acid.

Wrap the entire head in a paper towel, place in a plastic bag, and store in the fridge. Pull off leaves or cut off chunks of lettuce as you need them, rewrap remaining lettuce in paper towel and return to plastic bag. Iceberg will keep fresh for a very long time if you store it correctly!

Lettuce actually needs a good amount of airflow, in addition to a bit of moisture, in order to stay crisp. That’s why restaurants store their lettuce in special perforated bins that allow for air circulation while it’s held in the fridge.

To clean iceberg lettuce, give the head a good rinse under cool running water and pat dry. Place on a cutting board and remove outer leaves that may be dirty or wilted, usually just the outer four. For lettuce wraps, remove leaves, trying your best to keep the whole leaf intact.

Wash before cutting: Use a knife to cut off the root and any other wilted or yellowed leaves. Then use your hands to separate the leaves from each and soak the lettuce in a bowl of cold water. Make sure to move the lettuce around to remove any dirt. Shake dry or blot with paper towels.

Use food-grade hydrogen peroxide for 10 min

To use hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning agent, mix 1 tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide to 3 liters of water. Soak the lettuce completely in the hydrogen peroxide solution and let it sit for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, rinse everything off with cold water.

Health experts actually advise against washing bagged salad

While there is some level of risk, the U.S. Food and medicine Administration says greens which are labelled “triple-washed” or “ready-to-eat” can be eaten without being washed after they are taken out of the bag.

Many of the big producers (like Dole), explains Farber, use water along with disinfectants such as chlorine, to clean their bagged and packaged (as long as it’s labelled pre-washed!)

Pre Bagged Salads Are The Most Dangerous

Salads can contain bugs that cause food poisoning including E coli, salmonella and norovirus. The advice following the E coli salad bag outbreak was for all salad leaves, even those pre-washed, to be washed again at home.

Looking at bright, green fields of lettuce, it’s hard to believe it could ever make you sick. But if lettuce is contaminated with E. coli, it can be deadly. Lori Olson says she’ll never eat a bagged salad again.

Latest Outbreak Information

509 people with laboratory-confirmed Cyclospora infections and who reported eating bagged salad mix before getting sick have been reported from 8 Midwestern states (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin).

The easiest way to clean your greens is to agitate and soak them in a large quantity of water. At the restaurant, that meant filling 10-gallon sinks with cold water to soak 20 heads of lettuce at a time. At home, just fill a large bowl or your kitchen sink.

The thin plastic bag that houses most salad greens offers little protection from rolling peppers and heavy fruits also occupying the crisper drawer. Prevent bumps and bruises, which will make the greens turn soggy faster, by moving them from the bag to an airtight plastic storage container.

The absolute best way to keep packaged salad fresh is to transfer it to a different storage container. The internet is full of different methods, from rolling the leaves in paper towels to keeping them in a plastic bag that has been puffed up with air. Our favorite vessel is an airtight plastic container.

The best way to protect and prolong the life of your greens is by storing them in a large container lined with damp—not dry, but not sopping—paper towels. “If you wrap the leaves in a totally dry paper towel, the moisture from the leaves will be absorbed more quickly, and the leaves dry out,” says Ayoob.

If you don’t have a salad spinner or don’t have enough room in your refrigerator for keeping one in it, just grab a plastic storage container large enough to fit the salad greens. Line it with paper towels, wash and dry the greens, dump them inside, seal the lid, and throw it in the refrigerator.