You’re ready to throw your salad together, or add some type of leafy greens to your dish, only to find out they’ve turned on you. There’s nothing worse than slimy, black, mushy greens, especially when you’re least expecting it. But there is an easy simple way to store salad greens so that this won’t ever happen to you again.
Through trial and error, I’ve learned the hard way when it comes to buying and storing green leafy vegetables. So here’s what I now do to avoid it at all costs.
To begin with, if possible, buy greens in the plastic containers versus the plastic bags. This alone will help to keep them longer because they have more space to live in.
Also, make sure you look at the date when purchasing your greens to ensure you have at least a week to use them. One tip I can give you here is to pull from the back of the shelf at the store because they are usually stocked older to fresher, front to back.
The biggest issue that causes greens to go bad quickly is too much water inside of the container they’re sold in; which continues to worsen each day as they naturally give off moisture. Here is the most important thing you need to do so they don’t get slimy…
Open up the container, preferably the plastic container we talked about above, which gets unzipped, and place a paper towel under and over your greens. This will keep them moist, but not slimy because the towel will suck up the water you don’t want sitting on your greens, that in turn is what makes them soggy and gross.
You can start by placing one paper towel over the inside cover, and then in a couple days place one under your greens also. I find the fresher the greens, the less water you’ll have to deal with as a whole, so try to use them sooner than later.
In addition, if you choose to buy your greens in the bags, you can do the same thing by removing and placing them into your own plastic container, while also using the paper towel technique here also.
Having greens of all types on hand is a great way to add to any dish and to stay extra healthy. The antioxidants contained in spinach, kale, dark lettuces and Swiss chard limit the growth of certain types of cancer cells and can prevent it from striking in the first place.
Leafy greens are one of the top 10 best cancer fighting foods to include in your diet. So use this easy simple way to store yours and don’t let your money ever go to waste again.
Be and stay healthy my friends.
