Cleanse strawberries, cut off their green tops and let the berries air dry for about 10 minutes, says Kelly Anderson, a Glendale, Calif., certified chef and owner of catering service The Lunch Bunch. After slicing and drying the berries, store the berries in a zip-close bag in your refrigerator. Instead of spoiling in two days, strawberries will last for a week or more.
"When the tops are left on the strawberry, they continue to take on more oxygen through the green leaves and ripen more quickly, which leads to spoiling more quickly," Anderson says. "Plus, leaving them in that little pint box forces them to be in close quarters, which encourages spoilage because there's not enough air flowing between them."