8 tips to avoid wasting money on salad leaves

WHETHER YOU ENJOY YOUR SALAD LEAVES YIELDING AND SOFT, OR JUICY AND CRISP, THE CONDITION OF YOUR LEAVES WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENCE AS TO WHETHER THEY BECOME PART OF THE MAIN EVENT FOR A JOYFUL MEAL OR WHETHER THEY WILL RESEMBLE A SAD APOLOGY OF A GARNISH PUSHED TO THE SIDE OF THE PLATE.

Sometimes it can feel as though there is an endless cycle of buying beautiful and pricy organic greens with your pockets stuffed with many culinary dreams of what delights you will make.

Two weeks later you are cleaning out the refrigerator and removing rotting almost liquified greens and sending them to the trash.

This is the voice of bitter experience.

Here are 8 tips to help you avoid wasting money on salad leaves.

TIP 1: ONLY BUY WHAT YOU NEED

If you want to enjoy fresh greens, you need to resign yourself to buying just what you need for two or three days and then going to the market to refresh your stocks. Be realistic about what you will use - in 2 or 3 days that will be enough for 3 large green juices or smoothies and/or 4-6 meals, depending on the level of raw you are realistically going to be making. A butter lettuce, for example, will make 4-6 wraps if using it as a wrapper. A large green juice will take a whole little gem or half a romaine lettuce. Sometimes this strategy simply doesn’t work if you have limited choice or live a long way from the market. So when you go to a larger supermarket or the farmer’s market, there are lots of varieties on offer. It’s like being in a sweet shop and you can’t decide on the sherbet lemons or the cola cubes, so you get them both. But the trouble is that leaves don’t last as long as cola cubes (but the good news is they are much better for you.) So, let’s look at the storing option.

tip 2: try this FLORISTRY TIP THAT WORKS FOR HERBS AND GREENS

Florists know a thing of two about keeping their flowers looking perky for as long as possible, so what’s their secret? The simple trick is to cut your stems underwater. When you cut the stems, they go into shock and the end of the stem will absorb whatever it is exposed to - if that’s air, then it will inhale air. If it’s water, it will draw up water, keeping your flowers/herbs/lettuces/veggies in good condition for longer.

Tip 3: STORe your salad LEAVES correctly

The next step to avoiding waste is to store your salad leaves correctly. Leaves requires moisture and a little air to stay in good condition. If you have a whole lettuce with a stalk, you can plonk the stalk in a glass of water and pop it in the fridge with a plastic bag, loosely over it so it still gets air. If you have loose leaves, wash your salad leaves, spin and pat them dry when you get them. Place a damp paper towel at the bottom of a plastic box and lay the leaves gently on top, with the lid on loosely.  If you have a perforated lid then this is ideal to help a little air circulate. Stored in this way, you can extend the life of your salad greens by a day or two.

tip 4: replant living lettuces from the supermarket

You can grow your own salad greens in a planter or window box. Picking only what you need will help to avoid waste. This might sound like you’ve involuntarily happened upon the wrong website here but take it from me, I am definitely not a natural gardener.

If you don’t want the bother of growing salad greens from seeds or seedlings, the most uncomplicated way is to buy the living lettuces from the supermarket which are growing and still have roots. Plant them into compost, giving them a good water and feed as you do so. They will last so much longer that way and you can reap a few leaves as you need them. You don’t have to tell anyone that someone else reared them from a mere seedling. You can enjoy lettuce parenthood in the grown-up years and admire your salad greens patch that has required minimal effort.

Living lettuces replanted in the garden: Photography: Deb Durrant

tip 5: REVIVE THEM

Leaves wilt because they lose water, so the logical step is to replenish the leaves with as much water as you can. Revive limp salad leaves by immersing in water with ice cubes (or icy cold water) and add the juice of half a lemon. Leave them submerged for at least 30 minutes. If your leaves require more significant recovery, you may put the container in the refrigerator overnight. Then spin in a salad spinner and gently pat the leaves dry. If this doesn’t work and they don’t look slimy, then you have a few other options before it gets to a composting situation.  

tip 6: JUICE THEM

If your salad greens are past the point of salad resuscitation, try juicing them or adding to smoothies.

tip 7: make SOUPS

Wilted salad leaves can be whizzed into raw soups. Try adding wilted rocket to some cashew nut or coconut milk, add a little garlic powder and lemon juice with a twist of nutmeg and warm it gently so the flavours meld together. Or shred little gem and wilt it into a warmed barley miso soup.

tip 8: SALSA VERDE

Those discounted salad bags in the store at the end of the day make great salsa verde. It is possible to make salsa verde with any salad leaves. You may wish to throw in some extra flavourful soft herbs such as chervil, basil or coriander if you have them. Follow this recipe for wild garlic salsa verde replacing the weight of wild garlic for salad leaves. If the bag of leaves is shy of 140g, reduce the amount of oil accordingly. So go ahead and snaffle up those discounted salad bags and turn them into a delicious salsa verde. Once made, it can be frozen into ice cube trays and defrosted as required. Use in dressings, cauliflower rice, to add flavour to wholegrain bowls and in risottos.