To obtain a composition for preserving lightly-pickled vegetables, retaining the green of food, inhibiting the propagation of bacteria and improving storable duration without affecting their taste by including sodium acetate, adipic acid, calcined shell calcium or the like.

This composition contains (A) preferably 20-85 wt.% sodium acetate, (B) preferably 4-55 wt.% adipic acid and (C) preferably 2-35 wt.% at least one kind selected from the group consisting of calcined shell calcium and calcined egg shell calcium. It is preferable that a part or the whole of food such as a cucumber is immersed in an aqueous solution (preferably showing pH 5.1-5.5) of the composition so as to preserve lightly-pickled vegetables and that the composition is applied to the whole of lightly-pickled vegetables in a quantity of 0.1-2.5 wt.%.