Ice Cubes Are the Secret to Reviving Wilted Vegetables

Finding a bag of wilted spinach in the back of the refrigerator can feel like an insult to both your dinner plans and your grocery budget. With supermarket prices at an all-time high, knowing how to store produce to extend its lifespan properly can help reduce food waste, though even the best storage solutions have their limitations. But don’t give up just yet: you don’t have to throw away those sad-looking salad greens. One ingredient from your freezer can revive wilted vegetables in under 30 minutes. That’s faster than making a last-minute trip to the grocery store to replace your dinner ingredients.

How Do Ice Cubes Save Wilted Produce?

When vegetables like lettuce, spinach, and broccoli go limp, it’s not because they’ve necessarily spoiled. Instead, it’s because they’ve lost their reserve of water. Vegetables are packed with water — lettuce has a water content of 95%, while broccoli is 89% water, and cucumbers are a whopping 96%. All of that H2O packed inside vegetable cells gives food its shape and helps maintain its nutrients, but it slowly evaporates after harvesting. This causes the cells to break down, leaving your lettuce limp and floppy. However, submerging lettuce, spinach, and other greens in ice-cold water allows them to rehydrate. Refilling these cells can perk your produce up — perhaps not as perfect as it was the day you bought it, but with a noticeably improved texture.

Which Vegetables Can You Ice Bath?

Many vegetables respond well to a bout of frosty rehydration. This trick works best with leafy greens such as lettuce, arugula, spinach, and kale, and can even perk up delicate herbs like parsley and cilantro. Cruciferous veggies like broccoli and radishes can bounce back, too, along with green beans, carrots, celery, and asparagus. However, not every wrinkled vegetable can (or should be) revived. An ice dunk won’t stop existing spoilage such as visible mold or color change, or a reverse a transformed texture (like the slime at the bottom of a spinach bag). Pitch these ingredients and replace them instead.

How to Perk Up Your Veggies with Ice Cubes

Rehydrating wilted vegetables is as simple as filling a large bowl with cold water and ice cubes. If you want to be technical, culinary experts recommend a ratio of 3 parts cold water to 1 part ice cubes. Trim the stalks of any stemmed veggies (such as broccoli or celery) at a 45-degree angle so that water can quickly enter, and then submerge into the cold water for at least 15 minutes. After your timer buzzes, test the vegetables to feel if they’ve redeveloped any crispness. If your wilted spinach is perking up but not quite ready, you can place it back in the ice bath for a bit longer, though this trick maxes out at 30 minutes. After this point, vegetables are unlikely to continue reviving and can instead become waterlogged.

Enjoy Revived Vegetables ASAP

Using ice cubes to bring your wilted vegetables back to life is a temporary trick. While it works nearly instantly, the effect isn’t long-lasting, and you must thoroughly dry the produce before using it or popping it back into the fridge. Revived vegetables will eventually become soggy again, so use them within 24 hours for the best texture and flavor.

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