Turn Garden lettuce into Restaurant lettuce

[hotcouponmama]

You know when you pick lettuce from the yard and it's kind of wilty and warm, here's a quick tip...

Put the lettuce in an ice bath - water and ice together - for about a 1/2 hour. The lettuce will crisp back up and chill at the same time and be crisp and fresh tasting. Put unused lettuce in zip seal bag for later - stays well like that.

[derketchup]

omg! Where have you been my entire life!?

[ocean_brez]

Cool tip! Thank you! We rinse and store lettuce in a ziploc with paper towels to absorb the extra moisture, but I never considered that it could be restored in an ice bath and be crisp again. Yeah! :smile:

[hotcouponmama]

LOL derk! I've been just sitting down here in Oregon waiting to share that tip since I was 16! I actually learned that working in restaurants! My first real restaurant job was a pizza cook and prep person at Pagliacci's on the Ave in Seattle! I was 16. But then I've also been a restaurant manager at Red Robin, and they chopped tons of lettuce and used 5-gallon ice buckets filled with ice and sinks of water and would soak the green leaf lettuce that way. I love the fresh lettuce from the yard but I hate wilty lettuce!