Eat More Salads!! Cheaper, Longer- Lasting Pre-Washed Lettuce...

We eat salad in our house.

A lot of salad. We have a big salad almost every night with dinner. It's one way I stretch my budget- I generally serve salad and whatever fruit is on sale alongside the main dish.

Fortunately, where we live, there are Farmer's Markets almost year round. In addition, there are produce stands nearby. One way to make salads (which are budget-friendly anyhow) even less expensive is to buy large heads of different lettuce from a Farmer's Market of produce stand, where you can often get them for about $1 and prep them yourself.

I fill up one side of my sink with cold water, and add the lettuce. I usually swirl it around then drain and refill the water. Then rinse it as I put it in the bag:

I use this lingerie bag for the washer. You can get them at most WalMart, Target stores.

So I stick all of the soaking wet, but clean, lettuce in the bag- zip it shut...

And put it in my empty washing machine. (Now don't get the heebeejeebees. It's clean in there. I have been spinning my lettuce like this for years)

Run the spin cycle for a minute or two, in order to get the lettuce really dry....

Now you have a bag of washed and dry lettuce!

Stick it into a large bowl,

Then put a few paper towels on top. You're going to store it upside down in the fridge, and that way you can change the paper towels every few days when they are saturated with water. Keeping the lettuce dry keeps if fresh longer. I can often use lettuce for up to two weeks using this method. You can store the lettuce in whole leaves, or rip it up for even easier salad prep. (I don't suggest cutting it with a knife, as that can sometimes cause the edges to turn brown after a few days)

Flip it and store it!!

Here are two recipes to use your lettuce!!

Make Your Own PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps

Chinese Chicken Salad