Coles shopper shares food storage tip to save money: 'This is genius'

There’s nothing worse than having to throw out a bunch of produce after it goes bad. With budgets getting tighter and the price of groceries soaring, one Coles shopper has shared their nifty storage hack to avoid food waste.

Writing on the Simple Savers Facebook group, she told shoppers she went to Coles to purchase a lemon, but the supermarket was selling them for $1.39 each. She spotted a multipack of five for just $2.50, so she grabbed one of those instead.

Once she got home, she grated the lemon rind and squeezed the lemon juice into ice cube trays. The zest can be used for desserts such as apple crumble and lemon icing or turned into a lemon pepper seasoning for fish.

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“It helps cutting the lemons in half and heat them for about 30 seconds in the microwave,” the shopper advised. “So much more juice and also softer, and easier to squeeze (for people like me with arthritis.)”

She continued: “I turned the juice into ice blocks and stored in zip-lock bags in my freezer. All the zest went into a zip-lock bag, [I] squeezed out as much air as possible, and it’s also now living in my freezer.”

Shoppers react to the Coles lemon hack

The simple lemon hack went nuts on Facebook, with over 1.7K people reacting and commenting.

“This is genius !!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!,” one person exclaimed.

“I should freeze mine as I buy lemons then I don’t end up using all of them, and over time they rot in the fridge,” another pondered.

“Thank you for all the tips,” a third commented.

“So good! Freezing my produce and so many other things has saved me money this year. I wish my freezer was slightly bigger than the fridge portion haha,” another remarked.

Other shoppers share their food storage hacks

People were inspired by the Facebook post, with many dropping their own food storage secrets in the comments.

“I also buy a large tin of concentrated tomato paste and dish that out into ice cubes and freeze… so much cheaper,” one person said.

“I freeze the lemons whole and zest from frozen as needed… defrost for juicing. Way less sticky and the zest tastes fresher!” another wrote.

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“I also dehydrate the lemon peels and blend them up to make a powder that I can put on fish and also use the same as lemon zest in recipes,” a third chimed in.

“I also freeze my ginger. I get it home and into a zip-lock bag and in it goes. When I need some I just grate it and back into the freezer until next time. I also do [the] same with garlic. Remove the outer skin and freeze the cloves in a zip-lock bag,” a shopper added.

“I have a [lemon] tree and freeze both zest and juice. I also use the juice to make limoncello. Candied lemon slices are also a good way to use up some lemons and they last a long time. I also use the remaining skins with salt to give my bamboo chopping board a good scrub,” another commented.

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