Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
This event was on
Tuesday, January 28, 2025 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
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 cours… Read More.
Question:

What is the best way to wash greens such as spinach, arugula, or lettuce? And when buying packaged greens can you trust they have been ‘triple washed’ or should they still be washed?
— Jinx Pack
Answer:
So the triple washed ones I typically don't wash after they've been washed like that. Um, you know, it's kind of the one of those quick, easy, convenient things that we have from grocery stores, which is, um, I, I guess I trust that probably more than I should, but I do. But when I'm buying things like spinna, arugula and lettuces from like farmers' markets and stuff like that, I absolutely wash them. Um, and what I do is I will, um, depending on how much of it I have, if it's a lot I'll fill up a sink, a clean sink or uh, if it's smaller I'll fill up, you know, a large bowl of water and then put the greens on the top and then I'll push down the greens regularly to be able to, um, submerge them under the water and continue to push those down, uh, repeatedly. And what's happening is that, that, like say the spinach is releasing some of the dirt particles that have been trapped in there and it's releasing it down to the bottom of the sink or the bowl. And once you do that, it's all sinking to the bottom and your green stay at the top. Uh, so that's typically the way I'm going to wash my greens when I'm getting them from the farmer's market or from something like that as well. And then I'm going to put them out on a towel on my countertop, um, kind of pat them dry with another towel on the top of them and I'll typically roll them up in that towel to be able to, uh, dry them off to be able to make sure that they'll last as long as I possibly can. I typically wash my greens, um, right before I'm going to use them. Um, if I'm not gonna use them right away, I'm gonna basically keep them in a package or a bag or something that I got them from the farmer's market at, um, or I brought with me to the farmer's market then wash them right beforehand just to make sure that they're not going to wilt too much. 'cause that can tend to happen once you get them wet and submerged like that, they can wilt a lot faster. Um, so yeah, that's basically how I wash, uh, my spinna rug and lettuces.
