How to Blanch and Freeze Vegetables

Blanching is a great way to preserve the taste and color of vegetables before freezing them.
Tags: blanching, food safety

If you hope to pull tasty, nutritious vegetables from your freezer next winter, you need to blanch them first. Blanching stops the action of enzymes. These naturally occur in vegetables helping them grow and ripen. The enzymes continue to act after harvest and will cause color, flavor, texture, and nutrient losses. Freezing slows down the action of enzymes - but does not stop them.

Why some vegetables must be blanched before they are frozen, and how to do it.

Along with steaming, blanching vegetables is a basic technique every cook should know. Briefly boiled and then plunged into ice water, these bright and tender-crisp vegetables may be used in crudité platters, salads, sushi rolls, and stir fries, or refrigerated or frozen for later use. Just about any vegetable can be blanched. Here's how…