How To Properly Rinse Celery For A Fresh, Clean Taste

We're going to let you in on a little secret about why recipes always seem to take longer than they promise: Most do not account for the time it takes to wash and dry produce. Fortunately, cleaning celery is a lot more straightforward than washing some of your leafier (or just more porous) plants, and part of why that's such great news is that failing to wash your celery is among the most common mistakes you can make with the vegetable.

Although the notion of truly garden-fresh vegetables sounds a bit quaint, you still need to wash your grocery store celery to eliminate dirt, remove pesticides, and eradicate any pests that may have survived said chemicals. Celery's solid surface area makes it easy to spot little critters, but the root vegetable will obviously hide more dirt than vine plants like tomatoes. This means that celery requires more than just a pass under the tap. Start by trimming the celery into stalks, then wash off visible debris with your hands or a dedicated vegetable brush under running water. Give the stalks another pass through a clean stream before drying.

Because it grows straight from the soil, you should always wash your celery before eating it. Confirming what you likely already know, the USDA advises against adding soap to your produce washing mix. So, the good old water scrub should satisfy all cleanliness concerns. Peeling after washing can be an extra pesticide-reducing measure in some cases, but this would be comically challenging with celery. Instead, soaking the stalks in water with a splash of white vinegar for a few minutes is a common solution for the extra-cautious.

In addition to how easy celery is to clean, it's also easier to dry than many other plants. A good once-over with some paper towels will have it ready to use, whether you're eating it raw, cooking with it, or freezing it to use at a later date. (Just remember to blanch it before tossing it in the freezer.) You might even want to leave it in a sunny spot on the counter for a little while to totally dry it off. And, while you should always be keen to finish your veggies, if you have any leftover celery that you don't plan to use, don't make the mistake of putting it down the garbage disposal, as it could ruin the blades.