What Is a Crisper Drawer? How to Use This Modern Refrigeration Wonder

Let’s be honest. We’ve all used the drawers in our refrigerator as multi-purpose storage compartments. These drawers have been home to just about anything from beer and soda cans to cheese.

But here’s something some of you might not know: these units, known as crisper drawers, can do wonders in organizing and keeping your veggies and fruits fresh.

That’s why we’ve created this guide to demystify the mighty crisper drawer and help you use it to keep your produce fresh and cut down on food waste.

What Is a Crisper Drawer?

The typical refrigerator environment is cold and dry. The lack of moisture causes fresh foods like fruits and veggies to dry out or wilt. That’s where a crisper drawer comes in.

Also known as humidity drawers or produce drawers, crisper drawers are the compartments you find at the bottom of the fridge. They’re called “humidity drawers” for a reason.

Their overall design, vents, and control settings can be used to create more humid conditions than what you’d find on the shelves and trays.

The vents can be used to control the humidity levels. If you want a highly humid environment, completely closing the vent should do the trick.

Meanwhile, for lower humidity, you’ll need to open the vents, increase the airflow and allow your produce to breathe. What setting you dial in depends on what you’re storing in the crisper. We’ll get into it in just a bit.

What if my fridge doesn’t have any adjustable controls? Well, in that case, think of your crisper units as dedicated high-humidity storage compartments. Most refrigerators have two crisper units.

If that’s the case, you’re better off using one as a high-humidity drawer and the other as a low-humidity drawer, just to save yourself the trouble of having to change settings depending on the type of produce. This will also keep you from storing the wrong produce in the wrong compartment.

Related Article: Expert Tips and Storage Ideas to Organize Your Refrigerator.

How to Pick the Right Crisper Drawer Setting?

You can extend the shelf life of your produce by adjusting the humidity levels in the drawer. If your refrigerator just has one crisper drawer, then most likely, it is a high-humidity unit.

Sort your fruits and vegetables depending on which requires a moisture-rich environment and which is better off with low humid and airy conditions. Use the settings to close the vent to restrict the airflow and keep the cold, dry air from stripping the moisture.

To lower the moisture, all you need to do is open the vent. It’s as simple as that.

Scroll down to learn how to sort produce into high-humidity crisper and low-humidity crisper.

High Humidity

Store leafy veggies, greens, and herbs under high-humidity crisper settings, and they’ll thank you!

Leafy greens like lettuce, kale, and spinach, as well as thin-skinned produce like broccoli, berries, cucumbers, carrots, and cauliflower, fare poorly in a refrigerator's cold and dry environment.

By stashing them in crisper units set to high humidity, you can help them retain moisture and stay fresh for longer.

It’s a good idea to wash, spin, and wrap leafy greens and fresh herbs in flour sack towels and store them in the crisper drawer. This will prolong their freshness and keep them clean and ready for use at a moment’s notice.

Low Humidity

Low-humidity crisper drawer settings work perfectly for thick-skinned produce like apples, melons, avocados, nectarines, and bell peppers.

This type of produce tends to release a gas called ethylene, which is known to speed up ripening. The trouble is exposure to too much ethylene gas can also cause the fruits and veggies to overripen.

By keeping the vent open, you can create conditions that allow the gas to escape and keep your stock from spoiling. Use our airy, planet-friendly organic cotton mesh produce bags to store any fruit or vegetable that needs to breathe.

Drawers Without Humidity Controls

The humidity control settings could be missing in the crisper drawers in some refrigerator models. In that case, reserve one unit for fruits and the other for vegetables.

Even better, keep one bin dedicated to ethylene-emitting produce (mostly fruits and thick-skinned veggies) and the other for ethylene-sensitive produce (salad greens and thin-skinned fruits and veggies).

Why should you keep the two separate? Read the next section to find out.

Keep Ethylene Producers Away from Absorbers

Certain types of fruits and veggies should never be stored together because of the way they react to ethylene gas. As helpful as it is for ripening fruits like avocados, ethylene gas can make certain types of produce soft, mealy, and overripe.

Related Article: How to Store Tomatoes for Maximum Freshness

Ethylene is a gaseous hormone found in plants that helps regulate growth and development and the speed at which they grow. Produce like apples, bananas, avocados, and nectarines tend to give off high levels of ethylene gas.

In fact, it takes about one overripe ethylene-emitting fruit to spoil the whole stock (if stored together). That’s why it’s a good idea to keep ethylene producers in a separate crisper drawer and the ones sensitive to it in the other bin.

How to Organize Your Crisper Drawers

Use the following tips to make the most of your crisper drawers:

Don’t Overcrowd the Crisper Drawer

You should definitely avoid packing the crisper drawers to the brim. This will cut off the airflow, making the produce icy because of the trapped cold air. Nor should you leave them too empty.

Filling the crisper bin to about two-thirds of its capacity will get you peak storage performance.

Reserve the Bottom Drawer for Protein

If you have more than one crisper drawer, you can use the one right at the bottom to store animal protein, like raw meat, fish, and poultry. Why?

Because it is the coldest zone in the fridge. Use it as a dedicated space for meat and avoid storing it anywhere else for the risk of cross-contamination and messy leaks and spills.

Use Front-to-Back Storage Technique

Keep items that are highly perishable or nearing expiry out front as a reminder to consume them before they go bad every time you open the refrigerator door.

Layer Heavy to Fragile

When you have too many items to store, try stashing the denser produce at the bottom.

Next, layer this base with leafy greens and delicate fruits and veggies. This will keep the weight of the heavier produce from bruising or damaging the more fragile ones.

What to Store In a Crisper?

As the name suggests, a crisper unit is perfect for storing fresh produce. Anything that rots or produces ethylene gas, such as apples, avocados, melons, pears, and peaches, belongs to a low-humidity crisper drawer.

Related Article: How to Store Avocados - Whole, Cut, or Mashed?

If you place them anywhere else, the ethylene will stay trapped close to the produce and turn it overripe in no time. Wilt-prone leafy greens or delicate veggies, on the other hand, stay fresh and crisp in a high-humid environment.

Hardy produce like potatoes, onions, garlic, and sweet potatoes do not require refrigeration at all. All they need is a cool, dark, and dry spot in the pantry to keep well.

Tomatoes can also go into a cool spot in the kitchen to keep them from turning mealy and tasteless. It’s when you need to stop the ripening that you should pop the tomatoes in the low-humidity crisper drawer.

What about citrus fruits? These produce don’t need humidity and can be kept practically anywhere in the main part of the fridge.

Final Thoughts

We often use kitchen appliance features in the way they make sense to us instead of understanding why they’re there in the first place. The same applies to a refrigerator crisper drawer.

If you’ve been using it as a multi-purpose bin instead of the treasure trove it is, it’s time to take advantage of this highly functional unit.