How To Keep Shallots Fresh...

Years ago my beautiful sister-in-law shared this amazing tip with me about shallots...

We all know that if you buy a bunch of shallots at the supermarket, within days of having them home and in the fridge, they are limp, turn brown and are quite useless.  Even the magical Tupperware Fridgesmart containers can't keep shallots fresh much past 3 or 4 days.


So, the secret is - to plant them in your garden!  Yep - take your store-bought shallots and simply plant them!  No special soil, fertilizers or mulch, just a spot of dirt and a bit of water :)  You do not need to plant seedlings, you just plant the shallots that you buy from the fresh food department at the grocery store.

Make a hole in the soil, put the shallots in it, then cover with soil.

Give them a good water, and then let nature work its magic!

Then, whenever you need shallots for your cooking, you just go outside and cut off/pull out what you need.  I often add the green part of the shallot to freshen up a salad or stir fry, or even to top baked potatoes with cheese and sour cream - this is super easy when you just walk outside and chop the tops off a couple of the shoots.  And if the recipe requires the white bulb part, just pull the entire thing out of the ground and give it a wash.

They often re-generate and I find I only need to buy new shallots a few times a year!

These are the left-overs from my previous 2 bunches that I planted months and months ago.

It is such a great money saver, ensures that your shallots are fresh when you need them, and they are also great when you are running low in the vegie drawer, to create an additional flavour to your dish.

It is a beautiful sunny day, so grab some shallots and go out into the sunshine and plant them!

PS - I also do the same with the roots from hydroponic lettuce!  Plant them, and then I usually get one more set of leaves grow to use for a nice fresh salad :)

These are new leaves sprouting from a lettuce head that I planted last week.