This ridiculously easy hack keeps my celery fresh for weeks

It takes literally three seconds and requires no special equipment.

Once, at a grocery store in Colorado, I saw celery being sold by the rib, not the stalk. (Fun fact: ribs are what you call the individual pieces of celery, while the stalk is the whole bunch.) What a genius idea! Sadly, I’ve never seen that format replicated elsewhere.

Celery is one of those vegetables where consumers are typically forced to buy a whole bag, when they often only need a few ribs (or maybe even one!) for a recipe. And while celery doesn’t go bad as quickly as some other veggies, like cucumbers, it doesn’t last as long as, say, this year's "It" vegetable, cabbage. In my experience, when stored in the open plastic bag it came in, a stalk of celery will stay in peak form for about a week.

Recently, I’ve started employing the most ridiculously easy hack to extend my celery’s lifespan. Now, it stays crisp for up to three weeks, and I’ll take that as a win. The trick? Slide a second plastic bag over the top of the open bag that the celery originally came in.

A Celery Experiment

I’m almost embarrassed to write a story about this method, but it’s so easy and it extended my celery’s lifespan so dramatically that I had to share. To confirm my prior experience, I recently bought two bags of celery, covered one with plastic, and stored them on the same shelf in the fridge. After a week I checked, and sure enough, the celery ribs in the uncovered bag were much bendier. It was already to the point where I wouldn’t serve the ribs raw as crudité, although adding them to a soup or stew would still be fine. 

A week later, the difference was even more stark. The celery in the covered bag was starting to get a touch bendy, but the exposed celery was even more limp and starting to brown on the edges, and the leaves were wilting. 

Why This Trick Works

According to The Chef’s Garden by Farmer Lee Jones and Kristin Donnelly, celery is up to 90% water, so when stored, it needs both moisture and to breathe, two states that are often incompatible in the refrigerator. The breathing part is important because celery emits ethylene gas, which speeds up ripening and spoilage. If the celery was wrapped airtight, all of that ethylene would make the celery go bad even faster.

By double-bagging the celery, but not cinching it tight, you’re protecting it from the dry air in the refrigerator, but still allowing for air circulation.

Related: The Secret to Storing Every Type of Fruit and Vegetable

Other Ways to Make Celery Last

Here’s how Jones recommends storing celery in The Chef’s Garden: “Wrap celery in a moist cloth and refrigerate in a mesh bag so it can breathe.” Another storage strategy the book recommends is to cut the ribs into sticks and store them in water.

On the Internet, it seems that removing a celery stalk from its plastic bag and wrapping it in aluminum foil is a popular option. The foil also strikes that balance between maintaining moisture and breathing. 

I have faith that both of these methods would work as well as my double-bag method, or maybe even better! But, for someone who cooks a lot, I am fundamentally lazy when it comes to taking extra steps to store produce. (I will never soak berries in a vinegar solution, for example.) I am always looking for where “easy” and “good enough” intersect. In this case, that’s sliding a plastic bag over another bag.

How to Use Up Celery

Another way to keep celery from going bad is to use it up more quickly! Since one can eat only so many celery sticks, I’m talking about making it a main character in recipes, like in this flavorful salad. Another idea is to use it in a stir-fry, like this Beef and Celery Noodle Stir-Fry, which calls for six ribs.

Celery can also be roasted—really! Cut several ribs into one-inch chunks. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast on a sheet pan at 425°F for 45 minutes, or until golden and tender. I like tossing the celery with a few pinches of celery seed before roasting to really amp up the celery flavor. This makes for a surprisingly delicious side dish and an easy way to use up those last lingering ribs.

Read the original article on Real Simple