Making food last longer right now is a priority for everyone. Luckily, we've come up with a handful of ways you can do just that. Save food, money and time at the supermarket by getting the most out of your ingredients – it's easier than you might think.
Use natural preservatives
Acid, sugar, salt and oil are all brilliant natural preservatives that you can apply to your food to make them last longer. Try rubbing some lemon juice on that pesky leftover avocado to keep it fresher for longer in the fridge; or drizzling over a layer of oil onto an unfinished dip like hummus or tapenade, to keep the air out and the freshness in.
Freeze in bags
If you don't have a lot of freezer space, then Glad® Snap Lock Bags are going to be your saviour. Put whatever it is you're freezing into them (sliced bread, soup, lasagne), and remove as much air as possible before sealing them up. You can place the bag into a bowl of cool water, submerging it until just before the seal. Seal the bag while it's still in the water and then remove from the water – now you've essentially shrink-wrapped your produce.
Freezing in bags means you can make whatever you're freezing fit into the nooks and crannies of a full freezer, saving space as well as extending the life of your food. A good trick is to label and date the bags, too, so you know exactly what you're pulling out when it comes time to defrost.
Consider storage
It might be surprising to hear, but not everything lasts longer under colder temperatures. Take cucumbers. Turns out, they'll last way longer in a cupboard than they will in the fridge. Same goes for members of the nightshade family – aubergines, tomatoes and capsic*ms etc –they get damaged, rather than sustained, by the cold.
Bread too, fits into this category. Keeping it sliced in the freezer is the optimum method of keeping it fresh, but putting it in the fridge will cause it to go stale faster than if it was kept at room temperature (through recrystallisation of its starch, rather than an influx of mould).
Go waste-free
The best way to get the most out of your ingredients is to buy quality and use every last bit of it. Save those broccoli stalks and cauliflower leaves and make a soup – blending it up will mean no one will ever know you're using bits they might throw out.
Save onion skins; the tops, bottoms and skins of carrots, parsnips and other root vegetables and pop them in a pot with water. Cook for an hour and hey presto, you've got vegetable stock. And never, ever, throw out your organic or free-range meat, poultry or fish bones: cover them with plenty of water in a pot, add a splash of vinegar, pop on a tightly-fitting lid, and leave on the stovetop or in the oven for the day before straining and reducing to your taste. You'll end up with the most nourishing, healthy bone broth ever.
Glad Wrap your leftovers
Refrigerating your leftovers is the best way to keep food safe and allow you to continue eating it over the coming days. Don't leave it in the fridge uncovered though – inevitably those leftovers will take on the flavours of whatever else is in the fridge, and everything else will start to taste like the leftovers. Make sure you cover leftovers with some handy Glad® Wrap – it will keep your food fresher for longer, as well as containing all those flavours.
Keep your food preserved, protected and fresh thanks toGlad®.
