Blanching Veges For Freezing

When I first had any success with a vege garden and had sufficient excess to preserve, I wasn’t sure how to preserve it.  A call to my parents solved that one for me.  Dad explained the blanching process to me - well kind of.  There are things that I think are assumed that you know, in hindsight they seem fairly obvious, but the first time, you just don’t think about them. (Or rather, I didn't).

Drop them in a pot of boiling water for two or three minutes and then put them in a sink full of really cold water.  Drain them and freeze them.  Sounds pretty straightforward right?  My first few attempts, I tipped the whole pot (boiling water and all) into the sink.  It heated the water pretty darn quick and the shock of the cold water wasn’t there.  They were still fine to eat, but a little overcooked for me.

I’ve since read that it’s a good idea to have a basket that fits inside your pot, so you can lift the basket and drop it in the sink.  Great, but I don’t have one.  I started to take them off the boil a little early, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drop them into the sink of cold water.  It works, but is time consuming. Smaller batches in the pot at a time is a good idea here.

The next silly mistake I made was to just drop them in the sink.  I would then spend ages chasing the small peas around the bottom of the sink with a slotted spoon to get them back out to drain and then freeze.  Putting a colander in the sink has fixed that one.

Another silly mistake was that I didn’t drain them properly.  When I got my veges out of the freezer, I would find that I had a massive clump of ice with veges in it.  It doesn’t hurt them to sit for a while draining and if they haven’t quite cooled through, it finishes this process before they go into the freezer.

My last silly mistake was to fill a plastic supermarket bag full of veges all in one go and put that in the freezer like that.  It means that the veges in the middle take longer to freeze and I lost a lot of veges this way.  I found that at least half the bag had turned black and yukky before it froze.

If I now have a lot to do, I’ll use several bags so that they lay flat in shallow layers or free flow them in single layers in oven dishes for a few days before transferring them to a plastic bag.  It can mean more work, but it means that nothing is wasted.

The best advice I can give anyone is to do it in smaller batches.  Less in the pot at a time - this also gives you more time to be chopping the next lot.  This also means less in the sink at a time and less likely to heat the water up noticeably.  Freeze in smaller amounts means that they freeze through more quickly. 

To make this easier, I pick and freeze daily when things are in season.  It doesn’t seem like such a chore (I’ve spent most of a day blanching to get through my beans) and nothing is wasted.

The veges I usually blanch and freeze are: Carrots, peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli and corn.  I have also blanched and frozen radishes - I couldn’t find a way to preserve them anywhere.  They lose their fire, but are a great addition to winter soups and stews and even work in a stir-fry.  I freeze grated or thinly sliced courgettes without blanching.  At a time when both my husband and I were working long hours, I wanted to be able to make dinners quickly and simply.  I parboiled potatoes and froze them - much the same process, but they take longer to freeze so if you’re going to do this, don’t do too many a time, or make sure to free flow them in single layers.

The Blanching Process:

Clean and chop your veges to be blanched.  Make them the size you’re likely to want when you serve them.

Put a large saucepan of water on to boil.  When boiling, drop a small amount (they should float around freely in the water) of veges in the pot. 

Leave boiling for two minutes.

Scoop out and drop into a sinkful of very cold water (with a slotted spoon if you don’t have a basket) and into a colander or very large sieve.

Leave until fully cooled.

Drain as much of the water as possible.

Freeze in shallow layers or free flow for a couple of days and transfer to a plastic bag.