A freshly prepared salad is a healthy and delicious option for almost any meal but if you prepare salads at home, you know how challenging it can be to keep lettuce fresh and tasty. Nothing ruins a beautiful salad more than a bed of sad looking, wilted lettuce. Fortunately, there are ways to keep lettuce fresh for longer periods of time so you can prepare appetizing salads for you and your family. Here's how to keep lettuce from wilting:
Step One
Prepare a big pot of water and allow the lettuce to soak for ten minutes to help remove surface bacteria and pesticide residues. After soaking, put the lettuce under running water and lightly scrub the leaves with your hand to get any debris out of the crevices.
Step Two
Place the lettuce on a flat clean surface and pat it dry with clean paper towel until you've removed as much moisture as possible. An even better alternative is to put the lettuce into a salad spinner and give it a fast spin. This will quickly remove excess moisture. Salad spinners can be bought inexpensively at most stores that sell kitchen supplies and is well worth the small investment if you make a lot of salads.
Step Three
Wrap paper towels around the lettuce to absorb any remaining moisture and place it into an air tight, recloseable plastic bag. These bags can be purchased at your local supermarket.
Step Four
Place the plastic bag containing the fresh lettuce into the vegetable crisper inside your refrigerator. You lettuce is now ready to use in your next healthy salad.
Lettuce prepared in this manner can be kept fresh for up to ten days. To make your salads even healthier, try to buy organic lettuce to reduce your risk of exposure to pesticides.
