From fresh herbs to fresh veggies to fresh fruit – fresh foods tend to go south quickly once you get them home from the store or farmer’s market. We’ve all had wilted lettuce or yucky strawberries at least once right?! These Tips To Preserve Fresh Food may help good food from going bad…
Tips To Preserve Fresh Food
#1 Wash, Cut, and Freeze. I make an amazing Creamy Chicken Rice Soup (seriously, family favourite and it’s super easy to make!). My secret is to have all the ingredients in my freezer. As soon as I get carrots and leeks home from the store – I wash, cut, and group them into freezer bags. That way, when I want to make soup (and aside: I use these bagged veggies for stews too) I already have them good-to-go and just pop them in my pot straight from the freezer. Saves so much time (and I never throw out leeks now).
Tips To Preserve Fresh Food
#2 Be Berry Smart. Berries don’t have much of a shelf life in my house (I don’t know if it’s the house temperature or room humidity or if my house is just cursed to turn good berries bad). However, I am no longer leaving my berry preservation up to chance. I have learned to preserve Spring berries in three ways.
- Wash, dry, slice and freeze berries. A few weeks ago, I made a delicous raspberry coulis – in minutes – for a to accompany my Easy Coffee Cake Recipe using raspberries I had in my freezer and sugar.
- Wash and dry berries, trim them of their greens, and keep them in an air-tight GLAD food storage container for family-friendly snacking. Also, if you have the berries snack-ready – it makes packing school lunch that much easier.
- Make homemade freezer jam and store them safely in GLAD zipper freezer bags or GLAD Freezerware (I make homemade strawberry jam with farm fresh berries every year).
Tips To Preserve Fresh Food
#3 Dedicated Salad To-Go Containers. There have been more than one salad-catastrophes over the years (wilted greens, dressing tsunami, container leaks). I love having a dedicated salad container specifically designed to ensure no wilting, tsunami or leaks).
There’s only me so I do have to preserve quite a bit. Simply buying a loaf of bread is too much just for me, so I portion it and freeze it. I do the same with most things these days – and my son who lives upstairs wondered why I needed a proper freezer as well as the fridge/freezer 🙂
Don’t wash berries until you are about to eat them or they will spoil really fast!
I live in the south, so I grew up with freezing and canning. You won’t find many pantries down here without canned green beans and the like.
Great tips! I learned very early about fruits from my grandma but I never really know what to do with all we usually get! Most goes bad before we get to it! This is great!
i’ve found that the glad containers work the best. I always stock up on them when I’m at Walmart
We freeze a ton of produce in my house. It’s surprising how long some produce can stay frozen and still be in good condition when thawed.
Thanks a lot for these tips. I hate when a fruit or veggies gets bad because i forgot I have them. This really helps.
Thanks for all the food preservation tips! We have to throw out more food than I care to admit because it goes bad faster than expected. I will take these tips to heart and save some money.
These are great tips. I have always wanted to look into canning food. My friend does it every year at harvest time.
These are great tips. I love these glad containers- I will look for them at the store. I always chop/freeze/separate/etc all of our fruits and vegetables when we get home from the store. I need easy access to them so we USE them all without letting them go to waste!
These are wonderful ideas, I need to practice them more. I have let way too much food fo to waste.
I use containers like that all the time! I love them and they certainly do the job!
These are such good tips. I am always having trouble with my food going bad too quickly.
The berries I buy always go off so quickly in the fridge. I need to invest in an air-tight container for them.
I love this post. This is always my biggest issue and sometimes its so disappointing seeing certain things go off.
These are some great tips! I hate it when food spoils before I can use it so this is helpful! thanks!
I am actually very terrible of preserving food and it ends up spoiling rather quickly on me. I cannot wait to implement your tips, it never occupied to me freeze food.
I love these kinds of tips. I especially love them since warm weather foods are on their way, like fruit!
These are really good tips. At my house berries don’t stay on the shelf long but I could so use these tips for all my fresh veggies.
I love Glad containers!! I have never had a spill with them. others, i have not been so lucky. i really like the salad containers
I love using these products to prepare healthy and simple snacks and lunches for the days I’m on the go!
I always try to make sure the moisture on my veggies isn’t too much. They sometimes wilt to quickly.
Hi Caroline – We use the Glad storage containers for everything it seems! I have them all organized in their own cupboard! Great ideas you shared, also – thank you 🙂
I go through produce like crazy so this is helpful for me! I need to buy more plastic containers for storage!
Thanks for the tips. I usually use freezer bags to freeze chicken or ground beef.
These are great tips! I always wash and pat dry lettuce, leafy greens, and fresh herbs then store them wrapped in a paper towel in a plastic bag in the fridge.
I always freeze extra fresh produce whenever I can. It keeps them so nice and fresh tasting even after weeks!
I need to start cutting, washing and freezing because so many ingredients for a dish I want to make in the future will go bad before I get a chance to try it out. I hate wasting food.
May I also suggest making preserves and chutneys for later use; also cooking pastes for flavour combinations you like and can add to your food/cooking (i.e. I make a ginger/garlic paste which I love to add to ground meat (it removes the smell of it).
I needed these tips. Thank you for sharing! They’re very helpful.
These are some great tips. I always make sure I have containers to store my food in to keep it fresh. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for these great tips I always struggle with keeping foods fresh when I buy them in bulk.
Thank you for the wonderful tips! I love preserving food and I hate to see anything go to waste.
The Glad containers are especially good to keep things frozen in.
Thanks for all the great tips i hate waste,i check my fridge ever 2nd day and freeze what we are not going to use right away.
I always thought you had to blanch everything but it’s good to know that you don’t.