How to Keep Your Bagged Greens Fresher Longer
Sheela Prakash
Buying bagged, pre-washed salad greens is a habit of convenience we just can’t seem to break—even when it goes wrong. And it often goes wrong. Sure, everything may look fine from the outside, but more often than not we open these bags to find slimy, half-rotted leaves. That’s when we swear to write off this kitchen convenience forever. But soon enough another bag seems to find its way into our shopping cart, because maybe, just maybe, this one will be different.
It rarely is. But if you follow these precautions, you’ll up the chances that it will be.
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Here’s how to buy, store, and eat better packaged salad greens:
1. Go for the clamshell:
Packaged lettuce often goes on a bit of a journey to get to your grocery store shelf and suffers quite a lot of tossing around to get to you. Plastic bags don’t protect greens as well as they should, which means you’ll often find them bumped and bruised in the bag straight off the shelf. Plastic clamshells prevent any damage that may be caused from the knocking around during travel.
2. Choose hearty greens:
Certain varieties of lettuce are more delicate than others, which means that they are likely to get banged up and wilt quicker than other varieties. We often find the tender leaves found in a mesclun mix to already be on their way to wilted when we open the bag. Hearty greens like baby spinach and baby kale tend to stay fresh and crisp much longer. They also are varieties that aren’t limited to being eaten in salads. Both can be eaten raw and cooked — you can enjoy them in a salad when they are at their most fresh and sauté the rest as it starts to turn.
3. Keep an eye on the expiration date:
Like most packaged products, bagged or boxed salad comes with an expiration date, which should be used as a guide. This may require a bit of digging through the shelf — the packages with later expirations dates are typically all the way in the back — but the product is likely more fresh if it’s stamped with a longer expiration date.
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4. Store the mix in a different 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. It, like plastic clamshells, keeps the lettuce from being bumped and bruised. But unlike clamshells, it allows the lettuce more room to breathe (being stuffed into clamshells can induce premature rotting). A layer of paper towels on the bottom of the container helps absorbs extra moisture.
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photos: Epicurious, Cedric Angeles
