How To Thoroughly Clean Your Grapes With One Pantry Staple

Grapes are delicious on their own, in a salad, or frozen as a frosty treat, but no matter how you eat them, it's important that they're clean before you dig in. Not only because of residue from pesticides but because you don't know how many hands have touched the grapes at the store or how many sneezing children have misted them while walking by. Fortunately, there's one household staple that can help get your grapes as clean as possible: baking soda.

Baking soda can do a lot of things in the kitchen, from deodorizing your trash to cleaning your oven and making it look brand new. However, in 2017, a study by the Massachusetts Pesticide Analysis Laboratory found that washing produce with baking soda helped remove residue left behind from pesticides better than plain tap water and bleach. While this study used apples in their tests, America's Test Kitchen replicated the experiment using grapes and discovered that baking soda still came out on top. This was due to the fact that baking soda can break down the compounds left by pesticides, which are then rinsed away. Moreover, baking soda is mildly abrasive, making it good for removing dirt and grime from the grape's surface.

Washing your grapes with baking soda is easy. All you have to do is put the cluster of grapes you need into a large bowl and sprinkle about a teaspoon of baking soda for every two cups of water. After letting the grapes sit for a few minutes, gently move them around in the water to dislodge any dirt and rinse under cool, running water.

While it might be tempting to wash your grapes as soon as you pick them up from the store, you'll want to hold off unless you plan on either using them immediately or eating them all in a few days. This is because washing them prior to storing can add extra moisture that can make them start to spoil faster.

If you want keep your grapes fresh for as long as possible, you should store them unwashed in the fridge, preferably in a produce drawer set to high humidity. The high-humidity bin will prevent the grapes from drying out. Now, if you don't have a produce bin like that or don't have enough room, grapes can be stored on a shelf in the fridge; just make sure they're either in the container they came in or inside a container with ventilation holes.

When you're in the mood for grapes, you can either wash bunches as needed or wash a bunch you plan on eating in a few days and keep it in the fridge, separate from the others. You can also freeze your grapes to keep them for longer, but it's recommended to either eat them frozen as a treat or use them as a replacement for ice cubes, as freezing can change their texture and make them mushy.