Lemon Storage Hack

When life gives you lemons make sure you store them right. In this latest piece of coverage Natalie shares a hack for storing your lemons that will keep them fresh and at their best for longer.

Publisher: Well + Good

Full Article: This Simple Trick Is the Secret To Keeping Your Lemons Fresh for an Entire Month

Date first published: May 9, 2022

Food and Beverage Journalist: Maki Yazawa

Image credits: Well + Good, Getty/Juanma Hache

Contributor at Nali Consulting: Natalie Alibrandi, Linkedin

Key contributions from Nali Consulting:

How To Store Lemons, According to a Food Scientist

Storing citrus might seem like an afterthought once you get home from the grocery store. After you’ve exhausted your efforts reorganizing the fridge to fit everything from your shopping spree, tossing lemons into a citrus bowl and leaving them out on the counter might seem like no big deal. However, after speaking with Natalie Alibrandi, a London-based food scientist and CEO of Nali Consulting, we quickly learned that this simple act has been robbing our citrus fruits of their full freshness potential.

1. Keep them in the fridge, not on the countertop

“If you want to keep your lemons fresh, it’s best recommended to keep them in the fridge—and better yet, in the crisper drawer,” Alibrandi says. Indeed, all those cooking shows featuring immaculate, highly-stylized kitchen countertops piled high with fresh lemons and limes totally led us astray on this one (…but still love you the most, Ina and Martha).

2. Rinse, dry, and seal lemons in an airtight resealable bag before they go in the fridge

At high-volume restaurants like Spago in Beverly Hills, keeping lemons fresh is always a top priority. “We use tons of lemons, so we go through them a lot and reserve them for zesting, juicing, and garnishing dishes,” sous chef Jessica Alferos says. The point? She clearly knows a thing or two about how to store lemons for as long as possible. When at home, Alferos recommends first rinsing and drying lemons to eliminate any potential bacteria (or moisture) that could be present on the fruit, and then wrapping them in an airtight resealable bag to prevent them from drying out. According to Alferos, a refrigerator’s cooling fans create an arid environment inside the fridge, which can mean premature aging if you skip out on wrapping your lemons in a baggie before chilling them.

3. And don’t forget to store your lemons in the crisper drawer

Why the crisper drawer, you may ask? Crisper drawers have their own separate airflow system or temperature controls, making them a colder zone with more humidity, which is ideal for keeping produce fresh, Kristen Hong, author of the book Fridge Love, previously told Well+Good.