The Most Consistent Way To Keep Your Salad Greens Fresh Is Also The Simplest

Salad is one of those staples it's just generally good to keep around the house. (You never know when the mood for a Caesar is going to strike.) But anyone who always has salad on hand is familiar with the downside of the doing so. Salad greens often go bad quickly, and there are few things more disgusting than wilted, slimy salad greens.

So, how do you keep salad greens fresh for as long as possible, so you don't have to either throw them away or spend precious time picking out the gross bits? There are a few different things you can do, but the most important tip for preserving salad greens is also the simplest. And it's one you're quite possibly already doing: Use the crisper drawer. Seriously. It's there for a reason. Although it's important to note that you might not be using it correctly (and it's time to correct that).

That crisper drawer isn't just there to look pretty; it serves a purpose, too. The enemy with any leafy green vegetable is excess standing moisture, and the crisper drawer preserves them longer by exposing them to just the right amount of it. Crisper drawers come in two types: high humidity and low humidity — although some of them also allow you to toggle between the two.

Paradoxically, the kind you're going to want here is the high-humidity type. Low-humidity crisper drawers are better suited to fruits that give off ethylene, a gas that can cause greens to prematurely spoil (yes, this also means you should keep fruit in a separate drawer from vegetables). This has the end effect of keeping the greens at just the right level of humidity. That way, they're not too wet for dressing to adhere to (meaning you don't even have to dry the greens before you make a salad). 

High-humidity drawers keep greens humid enough that they don't dry out, but not so wet that they turn slimy with a quickness.

There are other tips to keep salad from going bad prematurely, too. Plastic bags are shockingly effective, especially if you blow a puff of air into the bags before you seal them, which traps some carbon dioxide in the package and slows the deterioration process. 

Another good trick for keeping greens fresh is to use paper towels to keep vegetables fresh. If you add paper towels to the aforementioned plastic bag, they'll wick excess moisture away without drying the greens out. (This is a particularly good solution if you don't have access to a crisper drawer.)

So much of keeping fresh produce in your home is fighting a rearguard action against spoilage, and there are all sorts of ways to combat food waste. It's not just a good idea for your budget, but a good idea for society in general.