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I use a lot of fresh basil, but don’t manage to go the the store very often, and what I buy tends to wilt very quickly. Recommendations?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Recorded

This event was on April 4, 2023

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Jacqueline Osborn

I use a lot of fresh basil, but don’t manage to go the the store very often, and what I buy tends to wilt very quickly. Recommendations?

Answer

So yeah treat them like flowers when you get home to get to take your basil and I usually put the stems into a water glass just like you said there but I'll take a produce bag and put it over the top and put it into the refrigerator and that little microclimate actually helps the the greens Stay Green much quicker. Another alternative for that is to have a Windows cell with basil growing in it, which is a great way to be able to have it you can have it inside which is really nice. You can have fresh basil all the time and then you don't have to go to the store to buy it at all. But keep it in your fridge with the bag of the top. Definitely the way that you know to be able to keep it fresh longer and try to buy it as the plant instead of the individual ones that have been picked off because it's a little harder to do that, too.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.