How to freeze and blanch your fruits and vegetables

You made your reserves of foods when picking up your own fruits and vegetables? To enjoy well and eat local all year long, nothing's better than freezing it! Here's how you can do so with what you have under the hand.

Wash and clean vegetables

Before freezing, a good cleaning is welcomed. To avoid frost forming over fruits and vegetables when freezing, dry well with a cloth to remove all water.

Slice vegetables

Cubed, sliced, stripped, into bouquets, no matter its form and size, your vegetables will be ready to use right off the freezer!

It also allows you to make portions easily. This way, you'll thaw only the amount desired. And if you missing on some leeks in one of your recipe, just go quickly to your grocery store for our already sliced leeks, you can find it all year long 😊

Blanch vegetables

Many vegetables must be blanched before setted in the freezer. You must soak it in boiling water for few minutes, then into cold water (or even icy) to stop it's cooking. This way, vegetables will keep its crispiness and good color.

Tomatoes also should be blanched. By soaking it into cold water after being boiled, its peel wil fall off amazingly and then you'll be able to take of seeds and crush into a great  homemade tomato coulis ready to use for a good spaghetti sauce base!

Blanching time based on vegetables

Roasting vegetables

You must also blanch eggplants before freezing. But to give a bit of wow to your recipe, degorge its water and roast it on BBQ. For peppers and zucchinis, no needs to blanch, but roasting a bit could aslo do a good difference into your recipes! 

Spread berries

To avoid being stuck with a big cube of berries inside your freezer, spread berries over a plate covered with parchment paper. After about 1 hour in the freezer, it'll be firm enough and you'll be able to move it into an hermetic plastic bag without it being stuck all together. Before sealing the bag, remove as much air as possible to avoid fruits from beign all frosty. It'll be perfect for these sorbets, mousses and smoothies!

Freeze bags flat

Freeze fruits and vegetables into flat hermetic bags. It maximalize space in your freezer and let enough place for ice cream 🍨

Identify each hermetic bags

Write the date, it's contents and the number of portions with a sharpie over each bags. You'll then be able to prioritize older bags and maintain a good inventory of what you have before doing your grocery shopping.

Vegetable not to freeze

Some vegetables hates being frozen. But hopefully, there's not a tons.

Salads

Even if it looks possible, avoid to do it. It'll loses its form once thawed. And cooked salad? It's not so popular in a plate!

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are filled with water. Once out of the freezer, it won,t have any crisp nor texture.

Potatoes and radish

Just like cucumber, they''ll become all soft and not so crispy once thawed.

Now that you have a good reserve of frozen fruits and vegetables, we have lots of recipe you would cook 😉