How to Freeze Vegetables for Maximum Freshness

Like Pot Roast and Justin Bieber, frozen vegetables need a facelift. They have a bad reputation, but in fact, freezing vegetables is an affordable way to access your favorite foods throughout the year, and in some cases they retain nutrients even better than their fresh counterparts . This process is more complicated than freezing fruit , but still quite simple.

Why freeze vegetables?

Nothing beats eating fresh vegetables, and yes, putting vegetables in the freezer will change their texture. However, this is the easiest way to preserve all the nutrients in vegetables without having to go through the more complicated canning process. This is useful if you have a surplus of seasonal: peas in the spring, corn and zucchini in the summer, carrots in the winter, and so on. Since almost all vegetables are quickly cooked before freezing, they take less time to cook when you actually use them. Keep frozen broccoli handy to toss in your roast. stir a handful of peas into the risotto; add the carrots to the thick stew. I like tossing a bunch of wilted kale greens into the bacon pot to start with the classic south side. Or, if you just want to keep things simple, gently cook any batch of vegetables over boiling water for a healthy addition to any meal.

The Essential Guide to Freezing Almost All Vegetables

The biggest difference between freezing fruits and vegetables is the blanching or flash boiling process. The blanching process stops the action of enzymes that can cause loss of taste, color or texture; it also brightens the color of your vegetables (just look at the vibrant green of these peas!), cleanses the surface of organisms, and helps slow nutrient loss. And after blanching, the vegetables need to be quickly cooled to stop the cooking process immediately.

A few more things to keep in mind: check your freezer to make sure it is set at 0ºF or lower . As with frozen fruits, moisture and air are the biggest pests for good frozen vegetables, so make sure you keep them sealed and as dry as possible!

1. Choose young, tender, crunchy vegetables in your prime. The sooner they are frozen after harvest, the better they will taste. If you have a surplus of peas and you really know you won’t be able to eat them all fresh, it’s best to freeze them as soon as possible rather than wait for them to get over.
2. Wash them thoroughly.
3. Blanch or cook vegetables in boiling water for a very short period of time (see below for more cooking instructions).
4. Shock vegetables by removing them from boiling water and submerging them in a bath of ice and water until their temperature drops and they cool down. I love doing this with a colander over an ice bath (see below).
5. Blot vegetables as thoroughly as possible. This is the really important part, otherwise your frozen vegetables might look like this:

1. Spread vegetables on a baking sheet until firm, then transfer to a heavy plastic freezer bag. After packing the vegetables, wipe off the top of each plastic bag and seal it as tightly as possible, “burping” the bag to release air before closing it. This will prevent scalding in the freezer and prevent food from drying out. Place the date and product name on the bags.
2. Your vegetables are ready to eat! To use them, defrost them either in the refrigerator or in a saucepan with cool running water. Defrost them for 6 months to a year, otherwise vegetables may get an unpleasant smell from the freezer.

Blanching times and other important things to remember

There is a step-by-step guide above for almost every vegetable, but there are a few varieties that just don’t freeze well. Vegetables with a high water content, such as kale, celery, cucumbers, endives, radishes, and lettuce, do not tolerate well in the freezer and will become soft and wet if you try to defrost them. Other vegetables, such as onions, change their taste; peppers, such as a green bell, become bitter. Follow these cooking guidelines and instructions and you can’t go wrong:

• Asparagus : cut into slices of the desired length; blanch for 2-4 minutes.
• Avocados : Freezing avocados in the same way as other vegetables will result in a mushy mass. Freeze the avocado properly by washing, scooping and rubbing with a little lemon juice to prevent browning.
• Bell peppers : Do not freeze peppers, green or otherwise, as they change taste during freezing .
• Broccoli : Peel and cut off the stems; cut flowers; blanch for 3 minutes.
• Brussels sprouts : Rinse well and blanch for 3-5 minutes.
• Cabbage : do not freeze.
• Carrots : Peel, cut into slices or cubes and blanch for 3 minutes. Blanch whole carrots for 5 minutes.
• Cauliflower : Soak in salted water for 30 minutes; blanch for 1-3 minutes in salted boiling water.
• Celery : do not freeze.
• Corn (kernels) : husk, silk, blanch for 4-5 minutes and cut from the cob after cooling.
• Corn (cob) : Blanch for 6-9 minutes.
• Cucumbers : do not freeze.
• Eggplant : Wash, cut into slices and cubes and blanch for 4 minutes. Dry well.
• Endive : do not freeze.

• Green beans : Line the ends of the stems, cut the stems, cut the beans into small pieces and blanch for 2-4 minutes depending on the thickness of the beans.
• Herbs : Do not freeze sprigs of tender, soft herbs such as basil, garlic, or parsley. Freeze more hardy herbs like rosemary, thyme, and oregano by peeling, drying, slicing and saving in olive oil; freeze in ice cube trays before transferring to zippered labeled bags.
• Jalapenos : Wash and blanch whole for 2-3 minutes. Place in a sealed bag as tightly as possible.
• Leafy greens such as kale, Swiss chard, and collard greens : rinse well; give up tough leaves and stems; blanch for 2-3 minutes.
• Lettuce and other salad greens: do not freeze.
• Lima or other beans in pods: peel, sort and wash. Blanch for 2-4 minutes.
• Mushrooms : brush well; blanch for 3-5 minutes.
• Okra : Trim the stems, but do not break the pods. Blanch for 3-4 minutes.
• Onions : Do not freeze onions as they change flavor during freezing .
• Potatoes : Potatoes do not freeze well as they become floury.
• Radish : do not freeze.
• Snow peas : wash, remove threads and stems, blanch for 1-3 minutes.
• Spinach : Trim and blanch for 2 minutes. Squeeze out as much water as possible before freezing.
• Sprouts : do not freeze.
• Green beans : cut, cut into slices, or leave whole; blanch for 3-4 minutes.
• Summer courgettes / courgettes : Wash, cut into slices and blanch for 3 minutes.
• Tomatoes : Tomatoes do not freeze well as they lose their flavor and become mealy. If you need to freeze tomatoes, peel and cut into quarters; cover and cook until tender, about 10-20 minutes; place the pot in cold water to cool, and spread over the containers, leaving about an inch of free space. Cover and freeze.
• Turnips and parsnips : Wash, cut into slices and blanch for 3 minutes.
• Watercress : Do not freeze.

So are frozen vegetables worth buying?

If you don’t have a surplus of vegetables to freeze, or are just short on time, store-bought frozen vegetables will do the trick. Frozen spinach is very healthy, especially when you are making a recipe like Spanakopita, which requires a very large amount of spinach. (If you bought fresh vegetables, you would buy bags of spinach.) Vegetables such as okra, which are hard to find in my area outside of a certain season, can be added to stews; the same goes for peas, which I often cook with risotto and fried rice, although when I have the opportunity, I prefer to freeze my own peas whenever I have the opportunity, as there is a big difference in texture.

As with freezing fruit, you can control variables such as cut and size (see Broccoli Divergence above). But the biggest benefit is probably that there are loads of vegetables like asparagus, cauliflower, and shiitake mushrooms that you can’t get in the freezer section of your supermarket, but you can freeze yourself.

So if you’re trying to figure out what to do with all this asparagus, what are you waiting for? After all, your freezer is most energy efficient when it is full.

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