Veggies on sale? Buy a lot and freeze them. Your freezer can be your best friend when trying to save money on your food bills.
By blanching the vegetables, they retain more vitamins and will cook faster when you decide to use them. To cook your frozen vegetables: Heat vegetables in water until tender.
Fresh vegetables can be frozen quickly and easily during the harvest season. Whether you freeze purchased or home-grown vegetables, the keys to a successful product are using vegetables at the peak of ripeness and freezing quickly after purchase or harvest.
I planted my first garden this year and a lot of the veggies I planted are becoming ready to pick.
I buy frozen vegetables in the bags. Then when I get home I divide the veggies into the proportion size I want and put them into a sealed container.
I am freezing zucchini and one of the methods is to freeze it unblanched. Is this method safe? What about the enzymes that blanching kills? I would hate to have problems with the zucchini once it is thawed but like the idea that it would not be as mushy as it gets when it is blanched. Please help, as we have a garden full of zucchini.
By Mira
I wash my zucchini well and drain. Then grate it peeling and all for making my zucchini cakes in the winter. I've never had any bacterial problems arise after immediately thawing it for use.
I also do not blanch bell peppers but clean well and stuff with rice, tomatoes, ground beef and onion and place in freezer bags. When ready to use, I put them in a pan with water covering the lower bottom a little and use a lid and cook til done. Again never had any bacteria problems arise preparing some vegetables in this manner.
Freezing veggies is not as difficult as freezing meat or proteins. As for zucchini, carrots, etc, cut them the same round size and blanch them in boiling water for about a minute.
It is handy to chop up such items as celery, onions, peppers and peeled garlic and store them in small plastic bags in the door of your freezer. I save some to use fresh, but a lot of the time I don't use them up, and they can go bad before we eat them.
Freezing Fresh Vegetables. Why should you not freeze fresh vegetables?
How do you freeze raw cauliflower and broccoli? Is it possible to freeze raw zucchini squash?
By Shirley Chartrand-Prebor from Tequesta, FL
I've only tried freezing broccoli, not cauliflower or zucchini. I parboiled the broccoli, let it cool, and packaged in zip lock style bags. It was pretty good after a few months for stir-fry meals, but that was all I experimented with.
How do I go about freezing these veggies altogether (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, leeks, and capsicum (red and green)?
I was considering lightly microwaving my home grown yellow squash and green beans instead of par boiling them which can make a lot of water, and then vacuum sealing is difficult.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
By Daphna Ariel from Alachua, FL
I microwaved 2 years ago and they got that funny taste after 6 months. I then tried the steam method, instead of microwave. Leave them whole, and when you get them hot all the way through dunk them in ice water to cool at once like corn on the cob, dry with a towel and cut up and freeze that way.
How do I to freeze vegetables?
By surelock from Lapeer, MI
If you can pick up a Ball Blue Book of preserving this will be a great help. I got mine at Wal-mart years ago and its a book that's worth it if you do canning or freezing of vegetables. Blanching is very important and must be done properly to destroy microorganisms that could destroy your food.
How do you freeze cauliflowers and green beans? Do you have to blanch them first or can you freeze them without blanching?
By Yvonne from Coventry, England
I have never frozen cauliflower but I am sure you can find directions by googling. For the green beans, you blanch them about 3 minutes and them cool them in ice water to stop the cooking action.
Follow Elaine S' advice and it's the same (3 minutes) for cauliflower but the florets and stems need to be cut into about 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces. Assorted veggies need different blanching times but beans and cauliflower happen to both be the same.
Sometimes I find veggies at a super price, but don't have enough cash to buy enough for canning, or I find a small amount at reduced price, but still high quality. Well, freezing them is the perfect solution.
