Did You Know – Storing Fruit & Vegetables

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With the high price of groceries today, we need to store fruit, vegetables and condiments so they last longer and we stop throwing them away. Check out some of the best ways to do this below.

CUCUMBERS: Store in the crisper drawer in the refrigerator at 50ºF – 54ºF with about 90% – 95% humidity. If they are kept below 50ºF for more than 2-3 days they will start to decay. Shrink wrapped cucumbers last longer but if you don’t have shrink wrap available, store them wrapped in a paper towel, in a plastic bag, unpeeled and unwashed.

ZUCCHINI & SUMMER SQUASH: Store in a cool dark place or for a short time in the refrigerator. They need ventilation so don’t seal them in a plastic bag. Store them in your crisper drawer, unwashed until you are ready to use them. For best quality and taste use within one week.

STRAWBERRIES: Store unwashed in the refrigerator at 32ºF to 34ºF in their original container and in the crisper drawer for up to five days. Keep them dry and don’t wash or cut them until you are ready to eat them.

HEAD LETTUCE: Avoid washing head lettuce when you get home and keep it whole until you are ready to use it. Store it in the crisper drawer with high humidity in its original wrapper.

MUSTARD: If your mustard has not been opened yet, store it at room temperature away from light. If your mustard has been opened, store it in the refrigerator. Make sure you put it back in the refrigerator as soon as you finish using it as the higher temperature and light will cause it to lose flavor faster. Stored open in the refrigerator it should last about a year.

SRIRACHA: Sriracha does not need to be refrigerated once it is open. But do store it in a cool dry place.

RASPBERRIES: Refrigerate your raspberries as soon as you bring them home. Keep them as dry as possible and don’t wash them until you are ready to eat them or they may get moldy.

CELERY: Remove your celery from the store plastic wrapping. Wrap the celery tightly in a sheet of foil so the moisture won’t escape and refrigerate in the crisper drawer.

LEMONS: Place the lemons in a sealed bag in the crisper drawer, they should last 3-4 weeks there. Cut lemons should also be stored in a sealed bag or airtight container in the refrigerator.

WATERMELON: The best way to keep a watermelon fresh is by keeping the rind on as its wrapper. It is best to cut a slice from the watermelon when you are ready to eat some as this keeps the fruit inside fresh longer by maintaining its moisture barrier. If you prefer to cut the watermelon into cubes, store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They should last for 3-4 days that way.

Source: http://www.simplyrecipes.com

http://www.InDianesKitchen.com

Categories: Cucumbers, Did You Know, Fruit, Lemon, Squash, Strawberries, Vegetables/Slaws/Salads, Zucchini

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56 Comments »

  4. We always buy our cucumber shrink wrapped and it stays fresh in the fridge for up to a week. Raspberries are one of the fruits that gets very quickly moldy and I usually have to throw a few away after a couple of days – now we buy smaller containers and eat them in one go! Very interesting post Diane – thanks for sharing!

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    • You’re welcome Corna! I actually have raspberries growing in my yard. I used to have a huge section of the garden with raspberries but everyone loved to eat them but nobody wanted to help me prune the prickly plants or pick the berries so I cut them all down except for a section about 4’x4’.

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  5. All great tips, Diane.

    I also changed my grocery schedule to do produce on Sundays instead of Fridays so they last longer for the week, especially the berries I get for T’s snacks.

    Groceries ain’t cheap these days!

    Reply

    • That was a great idea Ab. We are spoiled with all the tomatoes from the garden and produce at the farm stands. Berries are the perfect snack.I can’t believe how fast the summer has gone.

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      • You need to a post giving us a detailed tour of your garden. I’d love to see all your crops and birds!

      • Check out the link, it was back in 2020 but since then my husband has cut way back on his part of the garden. Mine is the same with blueberries, asparagus, rhubarb, annual herbs and perennial herbs, a few strawberry plants and raspberries. This year we were hit with thistles and we have pulled out hundreds of them, they keep coming back as getting the entire root system is impossible. I don’t want to spray because they are all through the asparagus and rhubarb. My husband planted cherry tomatoes, big boy tomatoes, poblano, green and jalapeño peppers. https://indianeskitchen.com/2020/07/19/our-raised-bed-vegetable-garden/

      • Oh yes, I remember this post! What a beautiful garden. The hard work and love shows and I love how you dry herbs for the winter.

        These are gardening goals for me! Although our backyard is nowhere as large as yours!

  6. Pingback: Properly Storing Fruits & Vegetables | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

    • I just told my husband today how I wish we had a good place to buy fruits and vegetables. He buys the groceries and I think I finally have him convinced to look at the bottom of them to make sure they aren’t already bad. I even stopped at a farm stand for melon and I could have put my hand through them. I don’t know why they think we would buy that rotten food! Then the owner said well it’s late in the day, I thought then throw away the rotten stuff don’t try to sell it. 🤦🏽‍♀️ I left empty handed!

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      • Frustrating for sure. The weather hasn’t been the best this year. I bought second crop strawberries today, and they’re bitter. Not good for eating that way and they were expensive. I’ll clean and freeze them and use them for smoothies. Not much else I can do.

  15. I didn’t know all these things … you would have to have a huge fridge I am thinking. But better to do this properly – the grocery bill is high enough the first time without buying produce a second time as the first batch spoiled!

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    • I doubt anyone would store all of these at the same time in the refrigerator but it’s nice to know how to keep them longer. When we wrap our celery in foil it will stay fresh for about 2-3 weeks if we don’t use it before that.

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      • We have done this for years and if you seal it tight it will last about 2 weeks longer than normal. The other thing you can do is clean it, cut it in half and put it in a container with water. I haven’t tried that way but it was right up there with the foil.

      • Now my mom did the celery sticks in water and carrot sticks too. She was told she needed to lose weight for her legs so her doctor told her to go on the South Beach Diet. This was many years ago and he said it safe. No carbs for the first “X” number of weeks. But I can remember she’d cut up celery and make carrot sticks, or maybe baby carrots and put them in separate Tupperware containers – they stayed crispy and she said we’d be more apt to eat them, if they were accessible and not soft. We went on the diet together.

      • I did it to make it easier to just make one meal. Our little meat patty with cottage cheese was so exciting back then. We ate a lot of eggs as I recall too. It was blah, boring but my mom did lose a little weight. Yes, if you have to go through a lot of effort, you won’t eat them.

      • I love cottage cheese and applesauce! No, it was on the side and very unappetizing. I suggested to my mom we buy some of the South Beach dinners – they had pizza, but I don’t recall any of the others. I think my mom said just pizza as she’d make the others. We’d be salivating waiting for the pizza to come out of the oven and it was not much bigger than a saucer.

      • Oh thank goodness, I just couldn’t imagine it on top! Years ago I used to buy those itsy bitsy prepackaged appetizers (they weren’t big enough for a meal). I made spaghetti, for example, and froze individual meals in the containers I wasted all that money on. My meals were cheap, microwaveable and delicious. Now that I am retired I make us a meal and put the leftovers in the refrigerator for another day. I’m so lucky Terry doesn’t like leftovers! 🤣

      • We were salivating waiting for it to get done! My mom and I were fans of Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza … so nice and crunchy and used to have it often. After I got a crown I asked the dentist if eating it would damage the crown – he said “no” but I decided not to eat them anymore. In fact the Little Caesar’s “Hot and Ready” pizzas for $5.00 came out around that time, so we were getting them more and more … I knew it was getting more difficult for my mom with her mobility issues, so this was a great option. We had those Jeno’s Pizza Rolls and Mini Pizza Bites. All the fun eating in the oven or toaster oven. You win big with the leftovers … my mom would give me the leftovers on things I really liked and she didn’t like the tuna roll ring made with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and tuna, cheese and peas and carrots … I liked that a lot, so ended up eating about 3/4s of it … my mom was not a fish fan!

      • Stouffer’s is one of my hubby’s favorite too, I’ll take a steak! 🤣 The $5.00 pizza was a good deal. I will say I don’t mind a Jeno’s meat lover’s pizza when I don’t feel like cooking. I’m with your mom about the tuna! That was nice you got all the rest.

      • We loved those French Bread Pizzas – a special treat for us and didn’t you have a post about making them one time? Yes, it was a good deal – they were always busy, no matter when you went by the store. I never tried the whole pizza, just the rolls and mini pizzas. Yes, neither of my parents were fish eaters and during Lent my mom made salmon patties and the tuna roll and also for a treat for me. I’d eat it cold the next day! When I was a kid, if my mom didn’t feel like cooking or we had gone somewhere and got home late, we had Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks “for the baby” something neither of them were keen on.

      • We loved those French Bread Pizzas – a special treat for us and didn’t you have a post about making them one time? Yes, it was a good deal – they were always busy, no matter when you went by the store. I never tried the whole pizza, just the rolls and mini pizzas. Yes, neither of my parents were fish eaters and during Lent my mom made salmon patties and the tuna roll and also for a treat for me. I’d eat it cold the next day! When I was a kid, if my mom didn’t feel like cooking or we had gone somewhere and got home late, we had Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks “for the baby” something neither of them were keen on.

      • What a good mom she was Linda! I will eat McDonalds fish sandwich with cheese, lettuce and tartar sauce, for some reason that’s the only fish sandwich I like. Lol

      • Yes, she was Diane. I haven’t had a McDonald’s fish sandwich in years, but I used to like them. And one thing mom did like was battered cod. Well, being Canadian, just like the Brits, they like their fish and chips. The chips are more like a pub fry. Anyway, she did like Long John Silvers, as did I. I traded her my cup of coleslaw for her two hushpuppies. 🙂

      • I just Googled pollock fish as I remembered it was white and breaded … it is a member of the cod family. My mom would never have had fresh fish. When I was on vacation with Werner and Alfonsa, they liked fish that had the head and tail on and you had to use a deboning knife to eat it. Not my cup of tea and would never have been my mom’s! We went somewhere for bouillabaisse and they said “you have to order this!” It came with fish heads floating in the bowl. Hushpuppies X 2 was great!

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