Potatoes never sprout or wrinkle for 5 months when stored with 1 unexpected household item

Whether you're making homemade chips, baked potatoes, or mashing them, potatoes are one of the most versatile and delicious vegetables that we keep in our kitchens. Regardless of how you plan to prepare them, it's essential to store potatoes the right way to keep them fresh for a long time and sprout-free.

Taking to a recipe page on Facebook titled Soup Lovers, Jeff Gruenke asked for advice on how to preserve his potatoes for longer after not having any success. He said, "How do you keep potatoes from sprouting? Within one week, each time they are sprouting." The post received over 60 responses, many of which suggested the same thing - storing potatoes in a cool, dark place. However, there's one specific storage method they had in mind.

Winston Polak commented, "Put them in a cardboard box, in a cabinet. I tried the apple thing. Made no difference whatsoever. The box kept them hard and fresh."

Kim Harvey said, "Get a cardboard box and store them in a dark, dry place out of the bag. They last for ages this way."

Sherry Bernier said, "One great trick that I find works very well. I use cardboard boxes from my Amazon orders. I would empty all of my potatoes into them and place them in a dark, dry spot in my basement, never sprouting, and it maintains the integrity of the potato.

Mary Hayes noted, "I read an article that a person had researched the best way to keep potatoes. His best results were in a cardboard box in a dark place. It works! I eat a few potatoes, so they are stored for a long time, but they keep well."

Heather Kalaw replied: "This is true. We got 50 pounds of potatoes, and they were in a cardboard box. We kept them in the basement, and they lasted like five months without sprouting."

Food expert Ann Pittman from The Kitchn tested out this cardboard potato method against six common storage solutions, and it came out on top.

When testing, Ann stored the potatoes for two months. In the first month, she checked on them every week, and there was virtually no change in any of them. She checked again at six weeks and started to notice a few differences in the appearance and texture of some of the potatoes.

Ann then let them go another two weeks before sharing her results. Five out of the seven potatoes were safe to eat at this point.

For the cardboard box method, she placed six potatoes in a small cardboard box that was just big enough to hold them in a single layer. Ann did not seal the box; the top flaps barely folded down and remained mostly open. She found that all of the potatoes in the box "felt nice and firm" after the two months.