Store Lettuce In Aluminum Foil For Fresher Salads

You had good intentions when you purchased that beautiful head of lettuce last weekend. In the grocery store, your plans included fantastic, vegetable-filled salads to take to work each day. Now, it's been a week, and that lettuce is brown and wilted — so much so that there's no way you could use it. You don't have to stop buying lettuce, but you should better understand why it wilts and how to prevent it from happening.

Lettuce typically wilts because it loses water. When breaking off a leaf, that crisp snap indicates the leaves are filled with water. As it loses that moisture in the refrigerator, it becomes limp, and over time, it will brown and wilt. Sometimes, you can place it into cold water to bring some life back into it. However, the better option is to stop the wilting from taking place altogether. It is possible to extend the life of lettuce with a simple trick using aluminum foil, and it works for most types of lettuce, too.

You may toss the head of lettuce into the fridge in the plastic bag you bought it with, or cover it in plastic wrap as soon as you get home. Some people wash it, dry it, and then put it into a plastic bag. Instead, you should be wrapping it in aluminum foil. It's almost the same process, so it will not take extra time. The foil will work to retain more of the moisture in the leaves, helping them last much longer. If the lettuce is fresh out of the garden or fresh from the grocery store, it could last as long as a month when tightly wrapped in aluminum foil.

Here's an added benefit — you can easily clean off the aluminum foil and use it again. That means you're keeping plastic out of a landfill while also reducing the amount of food waste you have in your home. This move is good for the environment, and it gives you more time to prepare that salad you know will be the healthier option for lunch this week. Despite how difficult it might seem, it's easier than you think to keep lettuce fresh.