Freezing Vegetables

For quite a while I thought the only vegetables that stood up to freezing were peas and corn, but I have found it’s quite a good way to quickly and easily preserve lots of different things. So now I have lots of whole tomatoes, sticks of celery, birds eye chilis, red and green capsicum, edamame, zucchini and eggplant in my freezer. I’ve found if you flash freeze things (spread them on a tray and into the freezer) then you can easily pop them into a resealable container and get just the amount you need. I use a piece of reusable baking paper so there is no sticking to the tray.

Tomatoes: If I don’t have enough tomatoes to make a relish or passata, or not enough time to make those, I will just chuck the tomatoes whole into the freezer. One of the benefits of making a passata with tomatoes from the freezer is that they are already quite broken down and easy to run through the mill. I’ll be making some more soon so I’ll take photos and record the process. 🙂 I also use the tomatoes from the freezer to chuck into stews or tray bakes. Obviously they wouldn’t hold up to being used raw but if they are being cooked anyway then there’s no problem! The downside to freezing whole tomatoes is that they do take up a lot of freezer space, so for me it’s a temporary preserving solution.

Freezing is also a great way to store dried tomatoes so next time I make some of my semi-dried tomatoes I will make extra.

Celery: We have not successfully grown celery in the garden as yet 😦 so the celery that ends up in the freezer is what we have bought and not been able to use before it would normally be destined for the compost. We don’t eat it raw – it gets used in mirepoix, stock or stirfries – so no issues with it being frozen. I don’t do anything to it before putting it in the freezer except cutting off the ends that don’t get used.

Chilis: Just flash frozen whole and then into a container in the freezer. They are waiting for me to think of what to use them for 😂

Capsicum: I’ve managed to grow capsicum this season after a year or so of failure. I swear I used to grow it easily. Anyway – none have ripened fully without getting hit by rot so I’ve been harvesting them green. And buying red ones when on special. I cut the core out, remove the seeds and slice the sides off. I try and leave the slices as large as possible. Again since we don’t use capsicum raw it is absolutely fine from the freezer.

Edamame: I grew soybeans for the first time last year and froze the beans. I totally forgot that the pods were edible so I shelled them 🙄, then if I recall correctly I boiled them for 4 mins before flash freezing. As with many fresh beans they need cooking otherwise they are toxic.

Zucchini: I really wasn’t sure about being able to freeze zucchini as I thought it would be way to watery but someone mentioned that they do so I figured why not give it a go! I mostly use grated zucchini (in bolognese, rissoles, sausage rolls, etc) so I grated some up and froze it in the quantities that I use it. I found that my silicone muffin tray held about 1 small zucchini’s worth. I didn’t bother squeezing the moisture out before freezing because it tends to get fried off a bit before being added to the recipe. If I was going to use it in something like a zucchini slice I probably would try and remove some of the moisture.

Eggplant: Again I wasn’t sure about freezing eggplant but since the zucchini worked so well I thought I may as well try it! I sliced the eggplant, blanched it in water with a bit of lemon juice, into an ice bath to stop the cooking, and then flash froze it before popping it into a ziplock bag. I grabbed a few slices out the other day to add into the pot roast I was cooking. Because the slices were frozen I broke them into smaller pieces and dropped them into the liquid. They completely dissolved into the sauce and just added a lovely extra bit of flavour.