How to Store Endive
Endive is a leafy vegetable. Endive can be eaten raw or cooked. In this blog, we will discuss how to store endive for the long term.
How to store Endive?
- Fresh endive can be kept in the refrigerator for 2 days
- Cooked endive can also be kept in the refrigerator, 1 to 2 days
- Keep endive stew in the refrigerator for a maximum of 2 days
- If you want to keep endive in the freezer, you can do so for 6 months
- If you want to freeze cooked endive, you can keep it for 3 months.
- Freshly bought endive that you can keep out of the fridge for only 1 day
- Keep sliced endive in airtight container see the packaging Use-by date.
Large heads of endive are not easy to keep in your fridge, but how do you store them? Sliced or frozen or sliced frozen. You can read it all in this blog. We start with:
Keep endive fresh
First, make sure you only buy fresh endive in the store. Fresh green leaves that are firm to the touch and the underside of the endive, where it is cut, is white. That in any case increases the shelf life and you can keep that crop longer.
Fresh endive that you have just bought can be left out of the refrigerator for a day. After that, it must be eaten anyway. It will become limp and less crunchy. He looks lifeless, as it were.
Store endive in refrigerator
You can very well put a whole head of endive in your vegetable drawer to keep it when you have room for it. It has to be placed in the vegetable drawer because there is the ideal temperature for the endive.
If necessary, remove the plastic from the endive because it shortens the shelf life. The endive can be kept in the refrigerator for 2 days.
When you cut a slice off the bottom of the freshly bought endive and wrap the bottom of the endive with a damp cloth, you can also stretch the shelf life.
Only wrap the bottom or the leaves will rot. This is also the case with a wet cloth.
When you take the head of endive out of the fridge and it looks a bit watery, wet, limp and dirty, often in the middle of the leaves, it is time to throw it away. Unfortunately, the endive has been lying for too long.
Preserve sliced endive
When you have bought sliced endive, it is usually in a bag that is slightly inflated. This means that the endive has been cut and washed in the factory and that a kind of air mixture has been added to the packaging so that the endive can be kept for a longer period of time. The date is on the packaging.
Always look carefully at the use-by date (to be used by). After that, you really have to throw the endive away. If you find that the endive does not look good or is moldy, you should simply throw it away, regardless of the date.
If you have sliced endive yourself, you cannot keep it in the fridge, you have to eat it immediately or put it in the freezer, but you can read that further on.
Preserve boiled endive
We have also written a blog about cooking endive ‘ How to cook endive ? . When you have cooked endive and you want to keep what is left, you can do this for 2 days. It must be put in a closed freezer container, which is properly closed. First, let the endive cool well covered.
When it goes into the refrigerator warm, the refrigerator has to work very hard to keep the temperature stable and the products in it can become warmer for a while, so that they have a shorter shelf life.
Place a sticker on the container so that you know when it went in. Put the date on it until when it is best before.
Have a taste and consider whether the endive still looks or tastes good when you want to prepare it again. When in doubt, always throw the endive away.
Store endive in freezer
Self-cut endive does not keep well in the fridge, it really needs to be put in the freezer. However, endive must be briefly cooked (blanched) and cooled if you want to freeze the endive. This is to kill the bacteria and fungi.
What is blanching? Blanching is cooking vegetables for 3 minutes. When it goes in the freezer, lower the vegetables into a container of ice water to stop the cooking process.
When you have cooked endive for a meal, the endive is already bacteria-free and you can keep it in the refrigerator after cooling.
Place the blanched or boiled endive in a freezer bag or container. If you have a lot to spare, it is useful to keep this in portions. Handy when you want endive for 1 person.
Stick a sticker on the freezer and put what is inside and until when it can be kept.
Frozen, cooked endive can be kept for 3 months in the freezer at a temperature of – 18 degrees. After that the taste decreases and it is no longer tasty.
If you want to use the endive again and it doesn’t smell or look good, don’t hesitate and throw it away. It can always happen that something went wrong somewhere in the process, resulting in a shorter shelf life. You may also have kept the endive in the freezer for too long.
Store stew endive
With mixed vegetables, it is always useful to maintain the shelf life of the vegetable with the shortest shelf life. In this case, it won’t matter that much.
If you want to store endive stew in the refrigerator, this can also be done for a maximum of 2 days.
The condition is that this also goes in a closed container with a well-fitting lid. Also write on a sticker when it can be used in case it shifts to the back of the refrigerator.
