Removing files from Recent Folder in Finder in Mojave

Every time that I pull up a Finder window it shows me every file under "Recents" folder, I have removed it from the sidebar but it still shows up. This is very annoying. How do you remove the files without deleting them from the hard drive? I would be fine if the recents were limited to a few or ten, not files that I have opened since 2017.