13 Surprising Storage Tricks to Help You Throw Away Less Food

1. Keep Food Safe in the Fridge

Store cooked foods above uncooked meat in your fridge. This minimizes the risk of food poisoning caused by drips from uncooked meat and other foods. While you’re at it, wrap any food with strong odors and avoid storing it close to dairy foods, which can become easily tainted.

2. How to Save Egg Yolks

Yes, you can save the egg yolks if you just used only the whites for a recipe—at least for a day or two. If you have intact egg yolks, slide them into a bowl of water, cover with plastic wrap, and store in the refrigerator. The water keeps oxygen away and you can still use them for a couple days. 

3. Why Do Reheated Burgers Taste Bad?

Even noticed a weird “off” taste when you reheat leftover hamburgers? That’s because when you refrigerate cooked beef, its fat oxidizes quickly, which will often give day-old burgers an “off” taste. That’s why it’s better to just refrigerate or freeze the uncooked patties—or try this method from Real Simple that makes it easier to break off frozen chunks of ground beef from a larger mass. If you can’t avoid cooking tomorrow’s burgers today, discourage fat oxidization in the ground beef by not adding any salt to the burgers until after you’ve reheated them. That weird taste won’t be as prevalent.

4. Keep Cookies Fresh and Chewy

To keep your cookies tasting chewy until the last one is eaten, add a slice of white bread to the cookie jar before you put the lid on. This will provide just enough moisture to keep the cookies from becoming hard. If crisp cookies are what you’re after, skip the bread and simply affix the jar loosely. This allows air to circulate and evaporates any moisture.

5. How to Keep Leftover Cake Moist

If you have leftover cake, you have more self-control than we do! One of the best methods of keeping the insides of a cake from drying out is to place a piece of fresh white bread next to the exposed surface. The bread can be affixed with a toothpick or a short piece of dry spaghetti.

6. Keep Your Cheeses Lasting Longer

Before you store semi-hard cheeses like Cheddar, Swiss, or Gruyère, rub the cut edges with a little bit of butter. You’ll never notice the taste difference, and the cheese will be less likely to dry out or become moldy.

7. Leftover Rice, Longer

Rice can be stored in fridge for a longer amount of time if you store a slice of toast on top of it. The toast will absorb excess moisture and keep...

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