I have learned a few tricks about food from TV {yikes!! hehe}
One of them is that slightly wilted lettuce can be revived with an ice-cold bath! {who WOULDN’T be revived that way? :)}
Something I have learned from simply researching natural health and cleaning techniques is that raw apple-cider-vinegar {ACV} totally and completely ROCKS at killing germs and bacteria.
**[regular white vinegar does a great job too… but for ingesting, I love having the extra beneifits of a raw ACV, though I consume my fair share of white vinegar too :)]**
So, for lettuce prep, I have combined the two and consistently am able to have lettuce last a week+ before starting to get … well, yuck.
And I prefer to buy a variety of fresh, darker-colored lettuces for extra nutrients, but this works with ice-burg, too.
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- chopped, wilted lettuce
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- in the ACV bath
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- chopped lettuce
I get a large bowl and fill half way with icy-cold water… sometimes actually adding ice. Then I splash about a TBSP of ACV.
{I know Bragg’s is shown, but I only use Bragg’s for drinking…. I use Heinz [cheaper] for things like this, but I was out. But, any vinegar will do a similar job :)}
Chop lettuce and let is set in the water bath for a few minutes, swishing it around…. try to make sure there is room for it to move a bit…. you could do this in your sink too.
Then SPIN! {I love my salad spinner. They are relatively inexpensive and save me on throwing lettuce away! :)} And layer with paper towels or napkins in a sealable bowl. {I have used gallon-zip-bags too…. But prefer a large bowl}.
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- all spun out
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- layered in paper towel
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- left-over dirt :/
See all that dirt in the bottom of the bowl? I drained much of the water so I could get a better photo of it—THAT was on my lettuce 🙂 but it’s not anymore!!
And at least most of the bacteria or pests that MAY have been on it have been rinsed away or killed by the vinegar.
Packed this way, with the paper towels and layered in and sealed up tight, I get a full week of freshness every single time!
{If you have somethign against paper-consumables, and that’s OK! you can use cloth napkins, but they must be highly absorbant, not the kind that liquids just run off of. You want excess moisture to be absorbed!}
{And it actually took more time to type this post than it does to actually DO this. lol}
Now, go, and have happy, clean lettuce in your salads!!