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Top tips

Try our top tips and ideas for making the most of the food we buy. Find out what types of food can be frozen and how to make your fridge a true food saving hero. Why not share your own tips to reduce food waste with fellow Love Food Hate Waste supporters.

Our tips for Lettuce

  • Great soup from fridge oddments

    Submitted by Merryl Cook, Heaton Moor, Stockport

    Gather up all the bits from your fridge - coarse outside lettuce leaves, that bendy carrot, bit of onion, green tops of leeks and spring onions, a few herbs, etc, etc. Put in a pan with water to cover and a stock cube or meat jelly or gravy if you have some leftover and boil until the veg are soft. Whizz in processor or liquidiser. The French call this 'Garbure' and it's almost always delicious and different each time. Can be thickened with leftover potato, or some small pasta shapes can be added, or a cooked chopped bacon rasher. Soy sauce and a slowly poured beaten egg will make it Chinese-ish. Curry paste,and garlic, or grated cheese, or mushroom ketchup ... almost any mixture you invent will taste better than a tin of soup, and it's practically cash- and additive-free!

  • Lettuce

    Submitted by Gina, Sydney, Australia

    Crunchy lettuce, like Iceberg or Cos is great in soups, particularly Asian style soups. Chop it up and add just before serving, like you would with baby spinach. This is an excellent way to use up a head of lettuce when you're sick to death of salad!

  • Limp lettuce

    Submitted by Cathy Price , Bromley, Kent

    If your lettuce is looking rather too limp to serve, just place the leaves in a bowl of cold water with a peeled, sliced potato and 'hey presto' it's as good as new! Just rinse, dry and serve that same day.

  • Salad storage

    Submitted by Cath Marsland, Stockport

    I threw away the drawers that came in the bottom of my fridge and replaced with long thin plastic sealable boxes now my salad ingredients stay fresher for days longer.

  • Grow your own salad

    Submitted by Daniel O'Connor, Gateshead

    Lettuce and spinach go off the easiest, but if you grow your own and snip as it grows, it never goes off! It is dead easy to grow your own. Just plant the seeds (from DIY stores/ garden centres) in yard/pots/window sill/garden starting in April. You will have lettuce and spinach all the way through to Sept/Oct, saving you £££s!

  • Keep salad fresh

    Submitted by James Wo, London, e1

    Keep salad in a paper bag, or in a plastic bag with a strip of kitchen roll. Keeps them moist, but not soggy!

  • Droopy Greens

    Submitted by Janet Hudson, Truro

    If green veg and salad leaves are a bit past their best, soak them in cold water for thirty minutes to freshen them up.

  • Stop lettuce leaves going brown

    Submitted by Nikki , Swanscombe

    Use a plastic knife to cut your lettuce and it will stop the leaves from going brown.

  • 14 day fresh lettuce

    Submitted by GARY FOX, LONDON U.K.

    When you get your lettuce home, remove from plastic wrapping, wash and drain. Take a clean T-towel and soak it under a cold tap, then ring it out. Discard any leaves from the lettuce, that are slightly brown and wrap it in the T-towel. Place in the fridge. You will find that this will keep fresh for an amazing time! (A life saver for those living alone)!

  • Keeping Lettuce Fresh

    Submitted by Michelle Talbot, Leeds

    When you buy an iceburg lettuce (it may work for others?) break it up with your hands and store it in the fridge in a bowl of cold water - it will stay fresh and crispy for much longer than normal.

  • Keeping food longer

    Submitted by P Smith, Northampton

    I use a Fresh Pod in my salad drawers and fruit bowl. It absorbs the gases form the ripening fruit and veg and helps them last much longer.

  • Grow Lettuce in Tubs

    Submitted by Anne O'Nemys, Cambridge

    Don't bother trying to keep lettuce fresh - grow it in tubs on the patio instead. I still have some leaves available in a frost-free place, in January - however it's so cold I don't feel like eating it!

  • Bagged Salads

    Submitted by Danni van der Walt, Bristol

    If you transfer your bagged salad leaves into a airtight container that is lined with kitchen roll this will help remove the excess moisure. Your salad with be crisp and dry and it will extents the life of the salad enormously.

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