The Best Way to Store Greens

The person who designed refrigerators to have a freezer on the top and the veggie and fruit drawers all the way on the bottom probably didn't eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. They probably at a lot of frozen TV dinners and ice cream. Otherwise they wouldn't have put the most important things on the very bottom of the fridge, hidden from view!

Luckily, newer models have the freezers on the bottom and the crisper drawers within easy reach. 
This is probably the thing I'm most looking forward to getting when we buy a home someday!

We have that first fridge with the two drawers on the very bottom. It is always such a pain to have to bend over and open the drawers every time I need produce. You also can't ever see what you have, and things always go to waste, get moldy too fast, and are always smashed. I wish I would have figured this out years ago. 

So, if you have a Costco membership, and even if you don't, here is my new favorite way to store greens. It really works great, and they stay fresh longer than in anything else I've tried. Most of our greens stay fresh for about 2 weeks (although we most often use them before then!)  

1) Purchase Earthbound Farms Organic Baby Spinach (the best price is at Costco, but they are also sold at Harmon's and other grocery stores). You can also purchase the Spring Mix salad. It's the container that matters.  I suppose you could use other containers too, but these are just the right size and already made for storing greens. 

2) Use the Spinach and/or Spring Mix salad (we go through one every 3-5 days). 

3) Wash and save the container 

4) Repeat steps 1-3. When I was trying to get enough containers I would buy a couple of the spinach and one spring mix at one time. We use it fast enough that they don't go to waste. 

5) When one container is empty, remove the label, wash it, and fill it with fresh greens. In our fridge we usually have some variety of these greens:

  Spinach

  Kale

  Collards

  Chard  

Romaine and Green leaf mix (chopped for salads)

This has been the best system for storing a large amount of greens in a small fridge! It allows you to see what you have and USE IT! Which in turn makes it easy to see what you need to restock. No more discovering that old, moldy bunch of lettuce buried under a pile of wet, soggy veggies. The containers are light, easy to stack, and narrow enough to stack 3 rows across (of course you don't have to have 3 rows). The size of the container is perfect for greens; normally I can fit 1 really large bunch in each container (sometimes more). 

When you get a new container of spinach (which we get often), simply replace the oldest one. Sometimes I'll even keep chopped broccoli or snap peas in one too. If you have a larger capacity fridge you could probably fit even more if you wanted a larger variety. I also like having a shelf in the middle for easier access to my most used non-leafy veggies (mainly carrots and avocados). This method also allows the bottom drawers to be open and free for other produce such as broccoli, cucumbers, mushrooms, celery, string beans, snap peas, peppers, fruit that is ripening too quickly, etc. And if you really want to get crafty, you could even label them! :) 

And there you have it! 

The best way to store greens. 

You can see them, use them, and enjoy them!