Who doesn’t love the convenience of pre-washed and bagged or boxed spinach and other greens? Sometimes I find them on sale, which makes them the same price as the typically less-expensive rubber-banded bunches! That’s a score!

Well, it’s a score if they get used before they turn slimy. It’s these slimes I want to talk about. Have you ever experienced this maddening issue? If so, then read on, because I have the solution to never dealing with slimy greens ever again!

We’ll start with spinach. As soon as you can after you get home from the store, lay out a long strip of paper towels on your counter. Then open your bag of spinach and spread it evenly down the towels. Lay a shorter strip at one end, atop the spinach.

Then start rolling from that end. Create a tight roll and place the roll in a plastic bag. Compress the bag to remove as much air as possible, then secure it closed. Your bags of greens will retain their freshness when kept in the fridge for over a week. Do this and you’ll never experience the slimes ever again!

One objection I get when teaching this technique is that it’s “a waste of paper towels.” Nope, not so. You can actually reuse them for this purpose several times. Trust me and give it a try.

Now let’s look at lettuces. They’re notorious for going slimy as well. You can use the same technique with any pre-washed and bagged lettuce as outlined above. But since I don’t buy lettuce this way, I devised a system for loose lettuces.

As soon as I get home from the grocery store, I remove the twist-tie band from the lettuce. I fill my clean sink with ice cold water; then I cut the bottom off my lettuce, separate the leaves, and cut them into salad-sized pieces. Then I plunge the entire head of cut lettuce into the ice water. I let it sit for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I lay out an old bath sheet atop my counter (that I’ve saved for this purpose).

Next I return to the sink and swish the lettuce around a few times, drain the sink, and then place batches of cleaned pieces in my salad spinner and spin off as much water as possible. I lay this drained and spinned lettuce down the towel and keep doing that until all the lettuce is onto the towel.

I then fold half the towel over the row of wet lettuce and starting at one end, roll it up into a tight log. I let it sit this way for about an hour. The towel absorbs any water that was lingering on the leaves after their ice water bath.

From here I divide the lettuce into airtight salad bowls, place a piece of paper towel atop the lettuce as extra insurance against any formation of future slime.

I then place the lids on each bowl, and stack them upside down in the fridge. Voila! Cleaned, crisp lettuce ready for salad-making! And never a slimy leaf in the bunch! (You can thank me later.)

Not only does this approach save money—no more wasted spinach and lettuce, but it makes it so easy to get your daily allowance of greens into the diet. I firmly believe that if something is easy to do, we’re more inclined to do it. And the systems I’ve just taught you make eating our greens every day, so much easier to do!