How to Organize a Refrigerator for Vegetables

Divide Vegetables into Three Categories

• 1

  Separate your vegetables by those that need to be eaten within a few days and those that will last for one week or longer. The most perishable vegetables are leafy greens, such as lettuce, kale and chard. Loose leafy greens, including salad mixes, need to be eaten within two to three days; leafy greens that are attached at the base, such as a head of lettuce, last up to one week. Place leafy greens aside in one pile.

• 2

  Create a second pile containing soft non-leafy vegetables and hard root vegetables. Cucumbers, eggplant, summer squash, green beans, broccoli and other slightly soft non-leafy vegetables last one week or longer if properly stored. Hard root vegetables last as long as one month if stored correctly.

• 3

  Form a third pile of vegetables that you will eat raw as snacks, appetizers and salads, such as carrot sticks and lettuce. Wash and prepare these items before storing them in the refrigerator. Wash leafy greens and dry them either in a salad spinner or by gently rolling them in a dish towel. Peel and slice carrots into sticks or rounds. Wash celery and cut it into sticks. Wash and slice radishes, or leave them whole if they are small.

Store Vegetables Correctly

• 4

  Store most vegetables in the slightly humid crisper drawers of your refrigerator. Unwrapped vegetables should never be stored on the top shelves of your refrigerator. The environment there is dry, which causes rapid wilt and spoilage. If it isn't possible to store vegetables in crisper drawers, store them covered at the back of your refrigerator shelves.

• 5

  Put root vegetables in loose plastic bags or open plastic or glass storage containers covered with a damp dish towel toward the back of crisper drawers. Root vegetables last longer unwashed and dry before storage.

• 6

  Place eggplant, cucumbers and summer squash uncovered in the crisper drawers in front of root vegetables. For longer storage, loosely cover them with plastic bags.

• 7

  Store green beans, broccoli and other slightly soft but non-leafy vegetables in plastic bags or open containers covered with a damp dish towel in front of, or in a separate drawer from, root vegetables.

• 8

  Place leafy greens in plastic bags or open containers covered with a damp dish towel in front of other vegetables in the crisper drawers. These vegetables need to be used first.

• 9

  Put sliced and/or peeled vegetables such as carrots, celery and radishes covered with water inside a plastic or glass container sealed with a lid on one of the upper shelves of the refrigerator.