Freezing Your Vegetables

Freezing vegetables is fast and simple.

There is more to it than when you are freezing fruits. But it is still pretty fast.

The step you have to include when freezing vegetables is the blanching stage.

Blanching is steaming or boiling vegetables for a short time and plunging them quickly into cold water to stop the cooking process.

Blanching is important to preserve nutrients and also to keep the vegetables from turning woody or mushy in the freezer.

The blanching stage only takes a very short time. It will take anywhere from a minute and a half for peas to four minutes for corn.

Most all purpose cookbooks list time for all vegetables. You can also use this vegetable freezing chart.

Once you remove it from heat, it will take twice the amount of time in cold water to chill the vegetable.

You can buy a special pan for blanching, but that isn't necessary. If you have a pan with a steamer insert you cause that. If you have a bath water canner, a stock pot, or any large pot that a colander will fit inside, that will work well.

Some vegetables need to be plunged directly into the water. For those, you just need a big pan. For tomatoes either a slotted spoon or a basket to lower them into the water is ideal. To do ears of corn, you just need tongs to lift them out the water.

If you are planning to freeze broccoli or cauliflower, you will need to soak them in salt water for about a half an hour before blanching it. I have heard the reason for this to to make sure any bugs hiding in the head somewhere will come out and salt draws them out.

Freezing vegetables is very quick. You can get a lot done in a short amount of time.