I tried a herb storage hack that worked so well they looked brand new after 10 days

Whether you're finishing a pasta with or whipping up pesto, fresh herbs are a cook's best friend. Unfortunately, buying them from the shop can be a letdown when they have a habit of going bad before you need them.

When it comes to fresh herbs, I've come to learn you need to use it or lose it. So often I've snagged a few sprigs of bright green basil for dinner then returned to see them become sodden, brown leaves ready to be binned - and felt the ache of food and money wasted. But a fleeting memory of a resurfaced while making dinner last week, and to my surprise, I've been able to keep a pack of supermarket coriander fresh for 10 days and counting.

How I kept herbs fresh for over a week

In short, make a bouquet of herbs in the fridge.

All you have to do is place the herbs stem down into a glass of water. Careful the lower leaves don't touch the water or they'll rot even faster than in the packet.

Encase your edible bouquet with an upside down plastic bag and secure it with a rubber band. A hair tie did the trick just fine for me.

I did what I do with fresh herbs - forget about them for a week until I wanted to use them again.

This particular time I'd bought a packet of coriander to make guacamole. It never fails to surprise and delight me how just avocado, lime, coriander (and salt and pepper!) makes something so delicious.

And the gods smiled down on me - the avocados bought days before had reached perfect ripeness in tandem.

As I tidied up the counter to make way for my husband to make fajitas, I looked at the remaining herbs - the vast majority of the pack - and dreaded letting more herbs go bad before I needed them.

An old memory of an easy storage trick that had worked years ago resurfaced.

It couldn't hurt to try and avoid what I normally do - throw them back in the plastic pack to be buried and forgotten in the vegetable drawer.

The final result - the herbs were remarkably fresh

To my surprise, I found a nearly perfectly intact coriander bouquet emanating a lovely fresh smell underneath the plastic bag. Just a few sprigs had yellowed and wilted in the whole bunch.

The only downside here is the vertical space needed to store the herb bouquet. I had fridge door space to spare this week, but there are times I won't.

A few lessons learned: the rubber band keeping the coriander together, which made placing the plastic bag a cinch, should be taken off to give the herbs more breathing room and repurposed to keep the plastic bag on. You may need a second set of hands to get all the herbs in the bag.

Next time, I'd also pop in a paper towel to absorb moisture to keep the herbs even fresher for longer.

Even so, I could see these herbs lasting for easily another few days, and with aforementioned tweaks, possibly two weeks. You can use the fridge bouquet method on other herbs too.