How to preserve vegetables, fruits, vegetables and mushrooms for a long time

If you want all the vegetables, fruits and vegetables in season that you buy to last long enough to eat them at their point, you have to know how to save it. Not everything goes to the fridge and not everything goes to the pantry. When it comes to fresh produce, we have to attend to its characteristics and the ambient temperature to decide where to place it so that it doesn’t get bad quickly.

Avoid food waste and keep your fruits and vegetables for a long time at home by following these tips.

How to preserve potatoes and other vegetables

The pantry or any cool, dry and dark place (it can be a low cabinet in the kitchen, a separate low cabinet, some wooden boxes under the kitchen table, etc.) It is the place where they are best preserved:

Onions and shallotsGarlicSquashes (butternut, Valencian, etc.)Potatoes, sweet potatoes, corms (such as yams), cassavaSave each type of vegetable, especially if they are small, in its own bag mesh, perforated or whatever you have. In this place they will last you months in good condition. Note that They must be ventilated away from the oven and other sources of heat and moisture, and out of direct sunlight to prevent sprouting and/or rotting. If it’s cold at home (late fall to early spring), they’ll last much longer.Try not to put the onions together with the potatoes because the excess humidity of the onions can make the potatoes sprout more quickly. If it is about vegetables already chopped or that you have left over from some preparation (for example, half an onion), always keep them in the fridge. And they will be easier to use if we put them in a separate container from the fresh vegetables, since we will see them more easily and they will not be forgotten in the background.

How to preserve sensitive vegetables and vegetables

If you fridge It has drawers for vegetables, use them. It is the best place to store:

Carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, and other roots Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, kale (general sprouts) Green asparagus, peas, broad beans Celery Peppers Eggplant Zucchini, cucumbers Swiss chard, spinach, turnip tops Store as is or in perforated paper bags to allow them to “breathe”. If they come in bags, make some holes in them. do not put weight on top of the most sensitive vegetablessuch as spinach, chard and aromatic herbs, since if you crush them they will go bad quickly. If what you have are pieces of vegetables, for example half a pepper, a piece of carrot, etc., it is better to put them in a container all together outside the vegetable drawer (on the next shelf, for example) to prevent them from going bad quickly.

How to preserve lettuce and green leafy vegetables

Lettuces in general need slightly different conditions: freshness, ventilation and humidity.

I put the lettuces aside because they are very delicate.The best thing we can do with them is to break them into leaves, wash them well, pass them through a lettuce centrifuge and store them in the fridge in the pot itself or in a colander, with damp kitchen paper on top. This way we will keep them fresh for longer and since they are already divided it will cost us less to take a handful and use it daily. When the lettuce becomes soft we can recover it by leaving it in a bowl or a large saucepan full of fresh water for at least 1 hour. It will recover its smoothness by osmosis.

These ways of saving and recovering lettuce can be applied also to other delicate green leafy vegetables, such as lamb’s lettuce, arugula, young beetroot leaves, watercress, baby spinach, dandelion leaves, etc.

How to preserve mushrooms and mushrooms

Mushrooms also need some different conditions than vegetables.

The best is store them in the fridge, unwashed, in a container that allows air to circulate or that prevents moisture condensation. If you buy mushrooms in trays, poke holes in the plastic for air circulation. You can also transfer them to perforated and open paper bags.Always avoid leaving them in their containers because they are usually packed firmly and this favors them to go bad.

How to preserve fruits

fruits in general You can leave them out of the fridge. in a fruit bowl, to eat during the day or two following days.

When it is hot or when we need to store them for a longer time, it is better that they are not next to the vegetables.Most fruits produce ethylene gas, It accelerates the ripening process of other fruits and vegetables that are nearby. If what we want is, for example, to ripen some avocados that are hard, there is no problem in putting them in a paper bag along with some apples or pears. But if what we want is for them to last longer, Better to reserve one of the vegetable drawers for fruit.Most fruits do not need anything special, you can put them in the fridge as is, but anothers, those that are more delicate, such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc., it is better that they go in bags or perforated cardboard boxes so that the air circulates and we do not get crushed.