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How to Freeze Produce – Tips for Freezing Vegetables and Fruit

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May 15, 2017 by Mary Hoover 14 Comments

Check out how to freeze produce with these tips for freezing fruits and vegetables. Buying produce in season and stocking up is a great way to get the best prices. PLUS you will find a FREE Printable Produce Guide to tell you what’s in season, each season.
How to Freeze Produce: Tips for Freezing Fruits and Vegetables This summer I planted a garden for the first time and was overwhelmed by the amount of zucchini that grew.  I knew right away that we would never eat it all.  I also knew that a great way to not let it go to waste would be to freeze it. Freezing Fruit and Vegetables is a great way to save!

So, Why Should YOU Freeze Produce?

Freezing #produce takes advantage of peak season fruits and vegetables for freshness and price. #frugalliving

Click To Tweet

If you don’t have your own garden, you may notice certain times of the year, prices on specific fruit and veggies go down.  That’s because it’s in peak season- and that’s the time to stock up!  Another time to stock up is when you find great manager’s special markdowns.  Freezing produce for you family can save you money, help with food prep in the future and gives your family great “fresh” produce all year round. Now you know you want to freeze produce for your family, but are wondering how to do it.

Here are some Tips for Freezing Vegetables and Fruit.

Freezing Produce Prep

  • First be sure to wash all pieces and dry them thoroughly.
  • Have freezer containers on hand.  You can choose to use freezer specific storage baggies, plastic containers that seal tight or vacuum sealer bags.  I personally use grocery store bought freezer baggies- with my own DIY vacuum sealer method (a straw to suck air out)! 😉
  • You will also need freezer space.  I have a separate deep freezer in my garage.  As I mention in my Realistic Stockpiling post, it’s a hand-me-down avocado green, but it works great!

Flash Freeze Fruit- great way to take advantage of fresh fruit prices!

Techniques for Freezing Produce

  • Flash Freezing: This technique is generally best for fruit.  It will help you avoid the one big lump of frozen produce mess.  To flash freeze, lay the items out on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer.  When they have just frozen, take out and place in your tight sealing container.  This way your berries, bananas or strips of green peppers will be in individual pieces not that big frozen clump

  • Raw vs. Cooked: Generally speaking, fruit is best frozen raw as are most veggies.  However there are some vegetable that are better “blanched” first.  To blanch a vegetable, place it in a pot of water.  Just when the water begins to boil, take out the vegetables and place them under cold water.  This will help retain the sugars and nutrients in the vegetable. Corn, for instance, it best blanched and then cut off the cob.

  • Meal Prep Packets: Another way to freeze your produce is in easy meal prep packets.  For instance, we love chili in the winter.  So I chop up the recipe amount of onions, red and green peppers and freeze them all together in one bag.  Then they are ready to throw in the crock pot! Also when I am making asparagus as a side dish, I will cut the bottoms off in thin sliced pieces and freeze them.  These are great added into any soup, casserole or sauce recipe (shhh, the kiddos won’t even know they are there).

Learn Tips for How to Freeze Corn and other produce.

Favorite Fruits and Vegetables to Freeze

  • Corn
  • Zucchini
  • Carrots
  • Peppers
  • Onion
  • Asparagus slices
  • Berries
  • Bananas (see more tips!)
  • Grapes

freeze bananas
If you are wondering when specific produce is in season, I have created a little printable cheat sheet so you can know what fruits and vegetables are in season and when. What’s In Season- Produce Guide Printable

printable produce guide

I would love to hear about your experience in freezing fruit and vegetables.  Do you make amazing fruit smoothies? Is there another veggie you freeze that I should try?  And let me tell you, my kiddos LOVE frozen grapes.  They say it’s like eating little popsicles (only much better for them!)

About Mary Hoover


Comments

  1. Vita (@VitaLivesFree) says

    October 10, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    Super helpful! I mostly freeze meat and fish (and my hubby’s photography films). 🙂 But occasionally I do freeze some spinach or swiss chard. Luckily, I live in a place where most produce is in season all year long or the seasons are totally mixed up. For example, the apple season is just starting now. 🙂

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      October 14, 2014 at 10:45 pm

      Yes we freeze meat too especially when I find great manager’s special prices! 🙂

      Reply
  2. Janell says

    October 14, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    I found this post by visiting the Frugal Friday Link Up Party. I usually by my fruit and veggies in the frozen section. I really had no idea you could freeze fruit and veggies with out putting them in an already prepared dish. I am going to try to freeze some pears that are falling from my tree. 🙂

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      October 14, 2014 at 10:44 pm

      Thanks for visiting Janell. A pear tree, my kiddos would be in heaven! I have never frozen pears, but I would suggest giving them a little lemon juice bath first. That will help them from turning brown. Good luck- would love to hear how it turns out! 🙂

      Reply
      • Janell says

        October 15, 2014 at 3:13 pm

        Thanks for the recommendation. I will give that a try. 🙂

        Reply
  3. Helene says

    October 21, 2014 at 3:51 pm

    This was super helpful. I have a new deep freeze and I have been thinking I need to get a few more things stored away before winter!

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      October 21, 2014 at 4:12 pm

      Oh good Helene, a new freezer how fun! 🙂 I just pulled out some frozen corn and carrots to use in a soup last night. It was so nice to have them already cut and ready to throw in! (not to mention knowing they were fresh when I froze them)

      Reply
  4. Susan says

    May 29, 2015 at 9:55 am

    Thanks — my girls are in 4-H and these tips are helpful because some of them are taking food preservation as a project. My oldest LOVES frozen grapes!

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      May 29, 2015 at 10:01 am

      Oh perfect Susan! My kiddos just asked for frozen grapes yesterday (to “officially” kick off summer).

      Reply
  5. Krista L Riley says

    May 15, 2017 at 11:33 am

    How long can you keep them frozen?

    Reply
  6. Lillian says

    April 10, 2018 at 3:46 pm

    We like to put a little bit of powdered jello over our grapes after they have been washed before we freeze them… leave a little water on the grapes for the jello to stick to and then freeze… We call them glitter grapes(I have two girls) they are also known as sour patch grapes.

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      April 10, 2018 at 3:57 pm

      Oh my goodness, how fun! I love this! Thanks so much for sharing Lillian!

      Reply
  7. Suzie says

    April 22, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    I prep and freeze sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions. I also brown hamburger and onions together and bag in standard cooking measures like 1-2 cups. Then when I need a fast meal it’s precooked. I also precook bacon. Anything to keep from throwing away food that goes bad in the frig. Found you can zest citrus and juice them and freezer in ice cube trays.

    Reply
    • Mary Hoover says

      April 24, 2019 at 2:11 pm

      That’s a great tip to Suzie. I also do this- sometimes called batch cooking. Here’s a way that I make the ground beef prep even easier… https://missiontosave.com/cook-ground-beef-crock-pot-freeze-later/

      Reply

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My name is Mary and I am on a mission to help you save! If you choose to accept and come on this journey with me, you will learn how to save more so you can do more living and give more freely.

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