Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Berries going bad too fast? Try this amazing viral TikTok hack that actually works

This viral TikTok hack shows you how to keep your berries fresh for up to 10 days

Veronica Sparks
By
Mixed berries
PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay

Berries are a fan favorite in the produce section. These juicy little delights are a vitamin-packed fruit that’s great for baking, snacking, making fruity cocktails like sangria, and even brightening up your weekend charcuterie boards. If you’re someone who loves berries, you know how frustrating it can be when they start going bad too quickly.

But worry not! A viral TikTok hack has been making waves online, promising to keep your berries in tip-top shape for longer. We’ll walk you through how to keep berries fresh using this amazing hack that actually works.

Recommended Videos

Say goodbye to wasting money on spoiled fruit, and hello to spoiling yourself with fresh, juicy berries whenever you want!

@kalejunkie

Replying to @emtill_1130 everything youve ever wanted to know about berries! #producetips #producehacks #berries #berryhack #foodhacks

♬ Au Revoir – Sweet After Tears

How to keep berries fresh with water and vinegar

Berries tend to spoil quickly due to their high water content, delicate texture, and the growth of mold and bacteria between them in their store-bought produce cartons. Exposure to moisture, heat, and air can also accelerate the ripening (or spoiling) process.

Related

To make your berries last for a week or even longer, follow these steps right after you bring your delicious fruits home from the grocery store:

  1. Pour 1 cup of white vinegar and three cups of cold water into a large bowl.
  2. Add your berries to the mixture.
  3. Stir up the berries to ensure they’re all adequately submerged.
  4. Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes.
  5. Grab a strainer and pour the berries into it to strain out the water and vinegar mixture.
  6. Rinse the berries thoroughly with cold water.
  7. Transfer the berries to a paper towel and pat them dry as best as you can.

So, why does vinegar help berries last longer? Well, those cartons of berries you buy from the grocery store often have mold spores and bacteria hiding in them. Once these harmful substances are allowed to grow, they will rapidly spoil all your precious berries.

But vinegar successfully kills any mold and bacteria that could be clinging to your berries without damaging the fruit itself. This means that your strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, or any other berry can last up to 10 days in your fridge!

A glass of Frozen Berry Margarita beside a bowl of berries on a circular tray.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to store berries to make them last longer

In order to make them last, though, you’ve got to know how to store your freshly washed berries properly. The key is to ensure moisture stays to a minimum in their food storage container. Here’s what to do:

  1. Grab an air-tight container large enough to fit your berries comfortably.
  2. Line the container with paper towels.
  3. Toss your berries on top of the paper towels.
  4. Cover the berries with more paper towels, close the container up tight, and refrigerate.

The paper towels will soak up any residual moisture from washing the berries, which successfully prevents additional mold or bacteria growth.

Boozy berry milkshake
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Additional tips: How to store strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries

If you’re following the above tips and learning how to store blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries, here’s another secret to keeping your berries fresh and tasty: Don’t place them in the coolest area of your refrigerator, as they can get frostbitten in those zones. Instead, store them where the temperature is less frigid, which is the front and center of your fridge.

You can freeze them for later, too

If you’ve purchased too many berries and know you won’t eat them right away (in the next few days), you have the option to freeze them. You can also freeze them if you plan to use them for berry smoothies or boozy milkshakes.

  1. Choose the best berries from your spoils and trash any that are spoiled.
  2. Rinse them in vinegar, diluted with cold water (like above), and thoroughly pat them dry. Note that it’s best to only freeze whole berries. But with strawberries, cut off the leafy green tops first.
  3. Spread them out into a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze them until they are solid.
  4. Place them in a sealable bag and in the freezer for up to a year.

It’s great to have fresh berries available in your fridge for low-calorie and low-cholesterol snacking, backing, and even topping off your Saturday pancakes. They’re sweet, tart, and healthy, but berries also tend to spoil fast. That’s why we love this amazing TikTok hack that actually works! Keep your berries fresh for longer so you can enjoy them for over a week without having to pick through and discard those gross soggy ones.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Veronica Sparks
Veronica Sparks
Contributor
Veronica Sparks is a writer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who loves writing about gardening, home décor, and DIY life. She’s…
The 10 best rosé wines that everyone should drink
It's time to finally try rosé
Rose wine glasses

Rosé rules -- no ifs, ands, or buts. You’ve most definitely seen dudes drinking rosé, with the pink wine sold in forties. Chances are, you’ve heard the term “brosé” at least once or twice in your life. Heck, people are cooking with rosé. Can you believe that? It's a sweet wine worth talking about.

All this talk about the drink prompted us to go on a quest to find the most exceptional ones this rosé season. With plenty of great options in the market, we chose to narrow down our list to these best rosé wines for your next hot date, guys' night, or solo Netflix binge. Still reluctant to try this magical wine? We listed seven reasons why you should start drinking rosé.
Best rosé wines

Read more
How to start your own home bar: the essential spirits
Home Bar

When you start getting into cocktails, drinking them is only half the fun -- making them is part of the appeal too. If you start making your own drinks at home, you'll soon find that you can often create better or more interesting drinks than what you're served in most bars. And even better, making drinks for other people is a great way to try out new combinations, learn about spirits, and make your friends and family happy too.

However, moving beyond the simple spirit plus mixer style of drinks which most people make at home and into the world of cocktails means that you'll need a wider array of spirits on hand than you might be used to. It can take some time and research to build up a well stocked bar, and choosing high quality spirits isn't a cheap endeavor. It's worth it, though, for the pleasure of being able to try out classic cocktail recipes and experiment with making up your own creations too.

Read more
You’re overlooking the most important ingredient in your cocktail
Steel Hibiscus cocktail.

When you list off the most important parts of making a good cocktail your mind likely goes immediately to good ingredients: quality spirits, freshly squeezed citrus juices, and well-matched mixers. You might also consider the importance of using the right tools, like getting a proper mixing glass so your stirred drinks can be properly incorporated, or a good strainer so that there aren't little shards of ice in your cocktails. And then there are the fun additions like elaborate garnishes, bitters, or home-made syrups which can add a personal touch to your drinks.
All of those things are important, absolutely. However I think there's one ingredient that can make or break a good cocktail, and it's something many drinkers don't ever stop to consider. It's the humble but vital ingredient of ice.

Why ice is so important
In mixed drinks like a gin and tonic or a screwdriver, ice is added to the drink primarily to chill it down to a pleasing temperature. That's a topic we'll come back to. But in cocktails which are shaken or stirred, ice is far more important than that. Cocktails are typically composed of between around 20 to 30 percent water, and this water comes from the ice used in the preparation process.
When you stir ingredients in a mixing glass or shake them in a shaker with ice, you are chipping away small pieces of the ice so that it dissolves and blends with your other ingredients. You might imagine that water doesn't make much of a difference to taste, being tasteless itself. But it's vital in opening up the flavors of other ingredients. That's why many whiskey drinkers like to add a dash of water to their whiskey when they drink it neat.
If you're ever in doubt of how important water is to cocktails, it's worth trying to make a drink with no ice. Even if you mix up the ideal ratios for a drink that you love and put it into the freezer so that it gets to the chilled temperature that you usually enjoy it at, if you sip it you'll find that your drink tastes harsh, unbalanced, and incomplete. Even for special room temperature cocktails like those designed to be drunk from a flask, you'll generally find water being added at a rate of around 30%.
When you make your cocktails you should be sure to stir for a long time – around 30 seconds is a good start – or to shake for a good while too – I typically do around 12 to 15 seconds – in order to melt enough ice to get plenty of water into your cocktail. Despite what you might imagine, this won't make the cocktail taste watery but will rather make the flavors stand out more as well as often improving the mouthfeel of the drink. A good rule of thumb is to mix or shake until the vessel is cold to the touch. That means your ingredients are sufficiently incorporated with the ice.

Read more