VIDEO RECIPE: Blanching and Freezing Essentials
Long time CSA member, Molly Bradford, invited us into her kitchen for a lesson on one of the essentials of putting up food, blanching and freezing. She used carrots as an example, but you can blanch green beans, greens (kale, chard, spinach, collards. . . ), squash and more. Times vary on the length of time for each veggie. Check google for the right time for whatever veggie you are cooking.
The basics of blanching:
Tools:
Colander style double boiler (if you have it) or large soup pot and slotted spoon
Colander
Large bowl
Lots of ice (might buy a bag if you are doing many batches)
Zip lock freezer bags, mason jars, vacuum sealer bags or your preferred freezing container
How to:
Get set up: fill your pot about 2/3 full of water and get it up to boil. Prep your ice bath by loading your large bowl with ice and water, and putting the colander in the ice bath, ready to receive veggies.
Wash veggies. Peel if you need to.
Chop to about the same size (so they cook evenly). Think about what you will use them for when you get them out of the freezer to determine the size.
Add them to the boiling water. Wait for it to come back to boil after adding, then start your timer. For chopped carrots, we did 2 minutes. Click here for a chart of how long to blanch each type of veggie.
When your timer dings, get the veggies from the boiling water to the ice bath as quickly as you can, either with a slotted spoon or if you have a colander insert in your soup pot, remove that and dump the veggies in your water bath.
Leave them in the bath until they are no longer warm to the touch.
Using your colander, remover them from the water bath and lay them out on a towel and then rolling them up and twisting them — at least if you are working with carrots. With greens, try a salad spinner.
Bag. If you are using a freezer bag, take a straw and suck all the air out., or just simply roll the bag on itself and push the air out.
If you’ve got a vacuum sealer, now’s your chance!
Label with the contents and date (and amount, if you are really on the ball!) and put in your freezer!
Please do watch the video to see the specific techniques and tools. Thanks for eating local!