Salads, sandwiches, and smoothies, oh my! Lettuce is an essential ingredient for most home cooks and chefs, which means knowing how to preserve lettuce is a crucial skill if you want to get the most out of your salad greens and keep lettuce fresh.
Whether you use romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce, kale, spinach, or other leafy greens, they all follow the same guidelines for preserving lettuce. Of all the ways to preserve lettuce, two factors make all the difference in how long your lettuce heads last.
If your goal is to maintain a fresh lettuce head for as long as possible, moisture and air are essential factors in the storage process. Lettuce is not like avocados, where you remove all the air to keep the vegetable green.
Instead, these veggies enjoy the airflow and a little bit of moisture to keep lettuce crisp. Although eliminating all the air prevents oxidation and keeps the outer leaves from turning brown, it does not correlate to crispness.

Nutrition in a Head of Lettuce
Fresh lettuce is bright green, crunchy, and packed with nutrition. Although the flavor is pretty neutral, it provides extra texture to a lot of meals.
It’s also extremely low in calories, carbs, and sugars. Head lettuce has under eight calories per cup. This vegetable is low in fiber and high in calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. It’s also packed with vitamins A, B, C, and K.
Because the taste of fresh lettuce is minimal, it is a great way to sneak in extra nutrients for children or picky eaters.
Salad is so low in calories that it helps people reach their daily doses of vitamins and minerals without being too heavy or fatty. Now that you know the benefits of fresh lettuce, you may be wondering what the best way to preserve lettuce is.
Whether you grow lettuces yourself or buy the heads, check out these suggestions for how to store lettuce so that you always have it when you need it.
Ways to Preserve Lettuce
Preserving lettuce types isn’t overly complicated and only takes a few moments, regardless of how you choose to store lettuce. These ways to preserve lettuce are simple and prevent wilting and slimy outer leaves.
You can take similar methods to preserve cabbage and other cruciferous veggies. However, making sauerkraut is the best way of storing cabbage without refrigeration.
How to Preserve Lettuce Heads
Whether you grow Romaine lettuce yourself or buy lettuce from the grocery store, knowing how to keep it edible is important.
One of the most natural methods to preserve fresh lettuce is by keeping the entire head in the fridge. Dampen paper towels in cold water and wring the sheets out to remove excess water to keep lettuce fresh.
Wrap the paper towels around the bottom of the lettuce head. Place the lettuce head in a plastic bag, leave the bag open, and store in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.
Follow the same procedure to preserve cauliflower in the fridge.
Preserving Lettuce with Loose Leaves
Do you know how long does salad last in the fridge? Lettuce and salads last much longer when they are properly prepared. The best way to store romaine lettuce and other loose leaf lettuce is in the fridge and only requires a few more steps than storing an entire head, like when you store salad of the garden type.
Trim a small part from the bottom of the stem off and separate all the leaves.
Fill a clean sink with cold water and dunk the lettuce leaves in the water. Swirl the leaves in the water to remove dirt and grit.
If you don’t like to use your sink, place the leaves in a colander, run cold water over them, and move the leaves around, so they all get clean.
Place the lettuce leaves in a salad spinner, working in batches, so it doesn’t get overly crowded. Spin the leaves until all the excess moisture dries. Take out the basket of the salad spinner and cover the top with a damp paper towel.
If you don’t use the basket from the spinner, use a colander to store the lettuce. Chill the greens in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before eating, or save the greens in the refrigerator for three to five days, dampening the paper towel whenever necessary. Don’t store lettuce in a large bowl because there won’t be proper airflow.
Follow these guidelines as the best way to keep basil fresh, as well as other herbs, in the refrigerator for several days.
Vacuum Sealing Lettuce
For those of you with vacuum-packing machines, this is a great way to utilize your tools. Vacuum sealing lettuce or using it for preserving cilantro helps the veggies or herbs last for one to two weeks.
Iceberg lettuce typically lasts about two weeks in the fridge with this method, while romaine only lasts about a week. Greens with more tender leaves, like butter lettuce, typically don’t bode well with this preservation method.
Freezing Lettuce
Freezing is one of the best ways of storing vegetables long term. However, some veggies respond better than others to cold treatment.
Can lettuce be frozen? Although this isn’t the ideal way to store lettuce because it causes the vegetables to lose some of their flavor and crispness, freezing lettuce is possible.
If you’re going to try this preservation method, it’s best to use the frozen lettuce in smoothies and soups and not in dishes that require the crunch of fresh leaves, as you do when preserving cucumbers in the freezer.
One way to freeze lettuce or as one of the ways to preserve basil is to remove the leaves from the stem and wash them in cold water. Dry the individual leaves with paper towels and place them in an airtight freezer bag.
Another way to freeze lettuce is to puree it and pour the liquid into ice cube trays to throw them into smoothies and stews. Frozen lettuce lasts up to six months in the freezer.
Learning how to preserve lettuce is quite simple and only takes a few minutes of actual work. Heads of lettuce typically last one to three weeks in the fridge, and loose-leaf lettuce lasts up to ten days.
Although lettuce isn’t the most durable veggie out there, it’s hard to imagine some of our favorite meals without its sweet crunchiness.

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