Try this easy clean-eating hack for keeping your herbs fresh for longer! All you need is a rubber band, plastic bag, and cup of water to create this mini greenhouse that will keep your herbs from going bad.
DIY Herb Greenhouse
What you’ll need:
- Jar
- Water
- Plastic bag
- Rubber band
How to prepare your greenhouse:
- Fill a jar with a little bit of water. Then, place the stems of your desired herbs inside.
- Take a plastic bag and place it over the tops of your herbs, allowing some empty space in the bag above the herbs
- Secure the bag to the vase with a rubber band.
- Store your herbs in the refrigerator and allow the greenhouse effect to take place.
Transcript:
Hi, it’s Jan D’Atri and if you’re looking to lose weight or keep it off, fresh herbs are a great way to season food without the calories.
Well, today I’m going to share my very favorite clean eating cooking tip with you! It’s a way to store fresh herbs for a very long time.
Fresh herbs are fantastic, but they don’t last a long time in the refrigerator. I mean, after a few days, your herbs just end up looking like this –limp. What are you gonna do with them?
So, here’s the secret: we’re going to turn your refrigerator into a greenhouse – and this is the effect!
What I have in this Ball jar with some water are all kinds of herbs. I’ve got parsley, basil, rosemary, thyme. And I’ve had these herbs in this jar in my refrigerator for about three weeks.
So, I haven’t opened it up. Now I want you to see something here. What we’ve created it’s just simply a ziploc bag and I’ve got a rubber band around the bottom. I took all my herbs, put them in the jar, and then I sealed them with this ziploc bag. And if you can see, there’s condensation and that’s creating the Greenhouse effect in your refrigerator.
And I’m going to open it up and I just want to show you what your herbs are gonna look like for weeks and weeks and weeks! And you don’t even need to change the water.
You ready for this? I have not opened it up in a couple of weeks – and look at this! You have absolutely beautiful herbs at your disposal any time you want! And you can put all sorts of herbs in the same jar.
So, again, I’ve got sage and parsley, rosemary, basil, a little bit of thyme, and this is going to keep. And then when I want it, all I do is pluck it off, put it back put the bag — you could use any kind of baggie that you want as long as it’s sealed on the bottom — put that right in there. Give it a little bit of room here to create that condensation.
You’re going to put your rubber band  around right around the bottom to secure it, and you have a greenhouse! And this is going to help you with your clean eating.
For more tips and great recipes for clean eating the Red Mountain Way, visit redmountainweightloss.com
Click here to see our full RM Clean Eating Kitchen series & view healthy cooking tips, recipes, and more from Red Mountain’s Culinary Chef, Jan D’Atri.
Jan D’Atri is Red Mountain’s official Culinary Chef, providing patients with a variety of instructional videos regarding how to cook healthy meals.
With an extensive background in the food industry as a restaurant owner, gourmet food distributor, and cookbook author, Jan’s expertise is in high demand. In fact, she has been featured in various Phoenix media outlets including radio host on 92.3FM KTAR, Arizona Midday, Sonoran Living, Phoenix Magazine, and more.
