Stop Storing Your Eggplant In The Fridge And Thank Us Later

Love hearty eggplant parmesan for dinner or a little baba ganoush to eat with your chips? Then don't ever store a whole, uncut eggplant in the refrigerator. The life of an eggplant can take a turn for the worse if you store it in this kitchen appliance. To put it bluntly, some fruits, cleverly disguised as vegetables, aren't meant for the cold and this purple fruit is one of them. The refrigerator is like the Boomerang Nebula, also known as the coldest place in the universe, for an eggplant, and it can make it less than appetizing to look at or eat. 

If you've ever stored one of these babies in the fridge only to find its once smooth, shiny purple skin has turned spotty, wrinkly, and soft on the outside while the seeds have turned brown on the inside and the flesh a little mushy, your eggplant was a victim of a chilling injury. But the cold weather doesn't just have an adverse cosmetic effect on this nightshade.

Storing an eggplant in the fridge is also going to affect its taste. Cold temperatures can cause eggplant to become bitter to the taste buds and rob this fruit of its youth and freshness. But where should you store your eggplants if not in the fridge?  This can be tricky because while the countertop seems like the next logical place, eggplants tend to dry out when they are stored at room temperature and don't last for more than a couple of days, if that.

So if the fridge is too cold and room temperature is too hot, what temperature is just right? UC Davis' Postharvest Technology Center (via Epicurious) recommends eggplant be stored between 50 degrees and 54 degrees Fahrenheit. This requires a cool, dark spot where the sun isn't beating down. Wherever that might be in your home, make certain to wrap them in paper towels to soak up any moisture that might erode and chip away at their freshness. If this is too complicated, you may want to buy them the day before you plan to prepare them.

Additionally, you do not want to store eggplants with other fruits like apples and bananas or they can cause your eggplant to ripen even faster. This means it could go bad before you are ready to make that red chili glazed eggplant recipe you've been dying to try.