Chef Tips: Helping Local Food Last Longer

We all experience great joy from opening up our Spade & Spoon box each week, unpacking all of the fresh beautiful food and thinking about the delicious meals we’ll enjoy in the coming days.

But unlike store bought food loaded with preservatives, our local food wont last for weeks and weeks. Food waste in our country is a big concern to us, so it’s important that we all know how to keep our local food at its peak freshness throughout the week. Here are a few tips and tricks, straight from our Chef, to successfully store your Spade & Spoon food and keep it fresh as long as possible.

All of our meats and seafoods come frozen, although some might have thawed a bit during transit. For best results, you should transfer the meat or seafood to your freezer as soon as you unpack your box. The night before you plan on making a meal, move the meat or seafood to the fridge to thaw. If you're in a pinch and need to thaw a protein quickly, you can use a restaurant trick. Place the meat - still in it's packaging - in a bowl in the sink and fill with very cold water, then set the tap to dribble a thin steam of cold water into the bowl. Depending on thickness, the protein should be thawed out in 30 minutes to an hour and a half. We don't recommend re-freezing any proteins that you have already fully thawed out, especially seafoods.

These items should all go right into your refrigerator as soon as you unpack your box.

While most of the cheeses and yogurts we offer should last in the fridge for a couple of weeks, keep an eye on the fresh dairy like milk and cream. The dairies we work with vat-pasteurize their milk, which preserves much more natural flavor than commercial high-heat pasteurization. However, vat-pasteurized milk does not have quite as long of a shelf life as some commercial dairy products. Pay attention to the date printed on the bottle cap, and try to use up the bottle within a week of opening.

All of the prepared sauces will last for at least a week in the refrigerator, with the dairy-free sauces like vinaigrettes and marinades lasting longer - but still try to use everything up within two weeks.

Tofu should last for several weeks in its unopened package - just check the use-by date. If you only use a portion of the tofu, place the remainder in a container and cover in clean cold water. It will last for several days. 

The eggs we source are very fresh and will last for 3-4 weeks in the refrigerator.

Produce (fruits and vegetables):

One of the things we pride ourselves on at Spade & Spoon is our commitment to minimizing the single-use packaging that comes with your box. One of the main ways we accomplish this is not individually packaging our produce. We recommend keeping a re-usable supply of produce bags on hand in your kitchen - no need to go out and by anything fancy, just save any bags from previous Spade & Spoon boxes or trips to the grocery store, and reuse them for as long as you can. When you unpack your box, bag up tender vegetables like lettuce, greens, peppers, and cucumbers and place them in your refrigerator’s crisper. Hearty vegetables like potatoes, onions, garlic, and winter squash can be stored in a cool, dark cupboard - we like to place these items in brown paper bags to block out light, which helps the vegetables store for a longer time. We recommend storing tomatoes on the counter.

Heartier fruits like apples, citrus, or stone fruits can be kept in a basket on the counter if they are going to be used within a week or so, but keep them in crisper if you're not going to get to them for longer than that - just let them come to room temperature before using. Delicate fruits like berries or figs can be kept in the fridge in their original container for a few days, but for longer storage lay them out in a single layer in a lidded container lined with damp paper towels and keep in the refrigerator.

You can treat most fresh herbs, like cilantro, parsley, and chives, like other produce – just bag them up and pop them in the crisper. Fresh basil, however, needs to be treated with a bit more care. For the best results, store the basil like cut flowers in a small jar of water, covering the leaves loosely with the bag the herbs came in. The basil will last several days this way. Never refrigerate basil!

The bread you receive in your box is baked fresh the same morning it’s delivered. The bakeries we work with pride themselves on the freshness and wholesomeness of their breads, using no preservatives or stabilizers, so these products won’t last out at room temperature as long as commercial breads. Unless you plan on consuming the breads within a couple days, we recommend placing the bread in a clean produce bag and either refrigerating or freezing until ready to use. If frozen, just let the bread thaw out for a few hours on the counter, and you’re good to go! If you're planning of freezing bagels or English muffins, slice them first and freeze in their original bags. They can go straight from the freezer to the toaster.

Fresh pasta and tortillas will keep for about 5-6 days in the refrigerator, but can be frozen if you plan on keeping them for a bit longer. Frozen pasta can be cooked straight from the freezer, no thawing required. Ravioli, gnocchi, and particularly pierogies need to be kept frozen and should be transferred to the freezer immediately. Plan on cooking these items straight from frozen, no thawing necessary.

The pizza dough you receive should be stored in the freezer. Thaw the pizza dough at room temperature for a couple of hours, or overnight in the refrigerator. Make sure you give yourself enough time to let the dough come to room temperature for best results.

These items can go straight into the pantry until ready to use.

We are very proud to be partnering with so many local farmers, ranchers, makers, and bakers and giving you the highest quality food our region has to offer every week in our meal boxes. We hope these storage tips will ultimately lesson the amount of food waste and help you enjoy your local meals to the highest degree.

Have additional food storage questions? Email us anytime at info@spadespoon.com

Thanks for supporting your local food community with us!

With Love,
Your Spade & Spoon Family