How do I freeze vegetables?

Question

At the moment I am just chopping my cabbage, and chopping and peeling my carrots then putting them in the freezer in freezer bags, but when I cook them they are quite soggy and tasteless, is there a way to freeze them without loosing the taste?

Answer 1

For the most part you can’t. Generally speaking the higher the water content of the vegetable you are trying to freeze the more problems you are going to have. The is because the water crystals break down the cell walls of the food making it uneatable and soggy. For instance you could never successfully freeze a head of lettuce because of the high water content. Ditto for cabbage. Even vegetables that you see frozen in the grocery store you cannot freeze at home.

Why is this?

I once watched an interesting program on television. It was about one mans quest to try and figure out how to freeze fresh vegetables. His name was Clarence Birdseye, also known as the father of frozen food.

He was able to successfully freeze meats but he had trouble with vegetables. He tried and tried to freeze vegetables but they always came out soggy. He experimented with “flash freezing” vegetables. This is done by quickly freezing the vegetables so the cell walls of the food are not damaged. He was able to perfect this technique and went on to market many frozen items including the first TV diners and frozen vegetables.

A rule of thumb for all freezing is this:

You cannot freeze vegetable at home because you don’t have the equipment to flash-freeze. It simply takes a normal consumers refrigerator too long to freeze vegetables.

The more water it contains the more damage will occur in freezing. I wouldn’t recommend freezing any vegetables.

The freezer burn you see in steaks (primary) is actually the damage to the cell walls of meat.

The less the water content, the lesser the chance of freezer damage.

Anything dry that readily accepts moisture, like potato chips and crackers, gets stale quickly because it absorbs the moister from the surround air. Place them in the refrigerator and they will never go stale because refrigeration removes moisture from the air inside of the refrigerator.

All nuts and seeds can turn rancid in a matter of weeks because of the oil contained in the nut or seed. If nuts are refrigerated they will last a very long time and if they are frozen then can be kept almost indefinitely. I have eaten nuts right out of the freezer and they taste great because they aren’t starting to go rancid and because of the cold, are very crunchy.

Answer 2

Prepare them as you would if you where going to eat them (Cut the ends of, remove skin etc). Heat a pan of water until it is boiling, drop the vegetables in the boiling water for about one minute. At the same time run sum cold water into another pan, if possible fill the water with ice. After the minute in the boiling water, remove and drain the vegetables. Drop the now dry vegetables into the cold water.
Leave it for about ten minutes then bag them and put them in the freezer.

Answer 3

Why not buy frozen vegetables. Alternatively, try eating them fresh. Sorry, I don't quite understand the point of freezing vegetables.

Answer 4

I freeze vegetables all the time. Maybe you are over-cooking them.

Answer 5

put in boiling water ,boil for 2 mins then plunge in cold water drain then when cold bag up and freeze

Answer 6

Try parboiling them first then freezing them, then when you want to use them, defrost toroughly and cook, they won't need as long cos you have already partly done it

Answer 7

you slighty cook them before u freeze them. Then when u are ready to use them they dont take long to warm up.

Answer 8

you should blanch them first in boiling water,they will retain more flavor,if they go soggy do not cook for so long.

Answer 9

PUT IT IN THE FREAKIN FREEZER WIH A GLAD PRESS N' SEAL!

Answer 10

buy frozen veg tastes just as good.