How to Make Lettuce Crunchy Again After It Is Wilted
The tomatoes are getting a piffling wrinkly on the counter. The side salad I planned to brand for dinner the other day was replaced by the more gratifying side dish of french fries. It'due south time to toss that salad before I waste more nutrient. Dang! Sad, wilted lettuce in the bottom drawer again. Did I just waste another dollar, or is there something I can practice to revive my greens?
It'due south no secret that cooking isn't a natural talent for me, and I would rather spend my time doing something else – like playing with my kids, writing for you, or getting bamboo placed nether my fingernails.
Merely equally a health advocate and a cost-conscious home executive, I spend a ridiculous amount of time in the kitchen cooking for my family.
Only like annihilation we have to do just don't want to, we find shortcuts. Outsourcing meals (eating out or ordering in) is convenient, simply not something we can practise every twenty-four hour period. Well, nosotros could, merely this would happen.
Then I endeavour to work around my kitchen shortcomings to make healthy meals.
As I call up about the kitchen hacks I've learned over the years, well-nigh of them I learned from my grandmother'south kitchen. And and then many of them I picked upward just from watching her equally a child.
As a tribute to my Grammie, who has been watching and messing with us from sky for almost vi years now, I share my favorite kitchen hacks with you in a department I call Grammie'south Kitchen Hacks.
Grammie's Kitchen
Allow me to introduce Patty. My Grammie was an Irish and German redhead raised by a single mother in New York Urban center in the 1930'southward and 40's. She went to private cosmic school and raised hell on those poor nuns.
Grammie was left-handed, but Catholics believed left-handed people were criminals or witches. The nuns whacked her hand with a ruler when she used her left hand to write.
Experiences like this made Grammie resourceful. At such a young age, she couldn't do what was natural and like shooting fish in a barrel for her – she had to learn to exercise things in other means. Grammie was an incredibly creative and talented woman. I am extremely blessed to accept learned her expertise in the kitchen.
Grammie's Kitchen Hack:
Place your wilted greens in a bowl, cover them with cold h2o, and add together ice cubes (optional). Wait 20 minutes to 1 hour for the magic to happen!
Whenever we would eat dinner at my Grammie's house, she would put the lettuce for the salad in a large bowl with water and ice cubes. Grammie said information technology made the lettuce crispy. I never realized this tip would have limp, wilted leaves and turn them into fresh greens once more!
I usually have greens on hand, especially since I got a salad spinner, only sometimes my intentions are better than my actions. Too many times I have put a head of lettuce in the drawer only to find a deplorable heap of wilted greens a few days later.
I remembered the bowl of ice h2o for the salad and thought I'd try information technology one day. I was and so pleased with the result! My soft, wilted kale was crisp and curly once more!
What Happened to my Wilted Lettuce, Anyhow?
Every bit a reluctant cook, I never realized I could take something that went "bad" and go far edible once more. But let'southward get something straight. Greens that are sad, limp, or fifty-fifty brown have not "gone bad." Browning is the natural procedure of oxidation that happens when enzymes in damaged cells meet oxygen in the air. Information technology is still rubber to consume.
Lettuce has gone bad when it is slimy. Slimy means leaner or fungus is taking over.
Lettuce gets soft and limp because information technology loses water. Fruits and vegetables are mostly water, with iceberg lettuce at 96% water. In the fridge, lettuce and other greens lose water to the air, the cells that hold the water shrink, and the outward appearance is wilted and limp.
This, by the style, is why we have "crisper" drawers in our refrigerators. If you put veggies in the drawers, the small surface area will keep the wet in the veggies longer.
Why does wilted lettuce become crisp when it is soaked in water?
Soaking your lettuce in h2o will crusade osmosis – remember that from center school science? H2o moves from areas of lots of water to not then much water so everyone can share.
The water will plump upward the establish cells and make the greens rigid and well-baked once again. Yummy!
The reason you should use cold water, and even ice cubes if y'all have them, is a little more complicated. The short version is colder h2o is more dumbo, meaning the h2o molecules are closer together. As in the picture higher up, you can see water molecules that are closer together form a higher concentration so more than h2o will move into the cells faster.
I soak my greens directly in my salad spinner, bleed, so use the centrifugal force to dry. My salad spinner even doubles as storage, keeping my greens hydrated much like the crisper drawer in my refrigerator, simply more visible. I observe I swallow more greens when they are stored already washed in my salad spinner on the shelf. It is convenient, and I don't autumn prey to the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that causes my carrots to sprout in the bottom drawer.
I know I wasted a ton of money throwing away limp greens before I figured this out. Hopefully, you learned something new to help you rock your kitchen today!
I am ever looking for means to feel fresh in the kitchen. I keep thinking some day I will fancy myself a cook if I learn enough tricks.
What are your favorite ways to revive less than fresh food? Share your tips in the comments beneath!
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Source: https://www.eatmyscience.com/revive-wilted-lettuce/#:~:text=Place%20your%20wilted%20greens%20in,it%20made%20the%20lettuce%20crispy.
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