Don’t rush to put lemons in the refrigerator when you buy them. If you do this, the lemons will stay fresh all year long and won’t get bitter or spoiled.
Lemon is a familiar spice that everyone knows. You can use lemon for dipping sauces, salads, as a spice for dishes or use lemon to mix drinks, soft drinks. Most people will buy lemons and store them in the refrigerator for later use. Storing lemons in the refrigerator is not wrong, but after a while, the lemons will gradually wither and even spoil. To preserve lemons longer, always have them available at home for use, you can apply the following tips.
Preserving lemons in sand
Choose fresh, juicy lemons, wash them and let them drain.
Prepare a jar or pot and some clean sand. The amount of sand must be enough to cover all the lemons and the sand must not be mixed with soil, trash, gravel… Spray a little water to moisten the sand.
Burying lemons in sand can keep them fresh for several months.
Spread a layer of sand on the bottom of the jar/pot and then place the lemons on top. Add a layer of sand for each layer of lemons. Do this until all the lemons are gone. The top layer will be sand that completely covers the lemons.
Keep the lemon jar in a cool place, away from sunlight.
With this method, you can preserve lemons for about 2 months. Each time you use them, just take them out and wash them. This is the method of preserving lemons, grapefruits, oranges, tangerines… that our ancestors used to use.
Store lemons in the freezer
You should choose lemons with thin skin, feel heavy in your hand and are not crushed.
Wash the lemons and soak them in salt water.
Then, remove the lemon from the salt water and rinse with clean water. Leave the lemon in a colander to dry completely.
For large lemons, you only need to cut them in half, without peeling them. However, for small lemons with hard skin, you should peel off the green outer layer before cutting them in half. For cherry lemons, you do not need to peel them because the skin is naturally quite thin and soft, making it easy to squeeze.
After cutting all the prepared lemons in half, you can proceed to squeeze the lemon juice. Using a lemon squeezer or a lemon grater to squeeze the lemon will be very convenient, helping to squeeze the maximum juice in the lemon. If you do not have one, you can squeeze the lemon by hand as usual.
Use a small piece of tissue paper to wrap the lemon peel before squeezing. The tissue paper will absorb the essential oils from the peel, preventing the lemon juice from being bitter. Note: fold the paper as small as possible to avoid the paper spreading out and absorbing all the lemon juice. When the paper is wet, replace it with a new one.
Squeezing lemon juice and putting it in the refrigerator will help you have lemon juice to use all year round.
Alternatively, you can also peel the lemon, remove the seeds, and put it in a slow juicer to extract the juice.
After squeezing all the prepared lemons, divide the lemon juice into small ice cube trays and put them in the freezer. When the lemon juice is frozen, take it out, remove the lemon juice cubes, put it in a box, cover it tightly and put it back in the freezer. That way, when you need to use it, you just need to take out 1-2 lemon juice cubes. Just leave it for a few minutes and the lemon juice will melt by itself. Stored this way, you will have lemon juice to use all year round. The juice will still retain its aroma.
