Frozen Veggies

[yvegeny]

If I go through and chop up plenty of onions, carrots, celery, and peppers, can I freeze them and use them as needed? I have recently begun making an effort while I cook and it seems to take me forever to chop these things for each meal. Maybe this would be a timesaver for me? Thanks for your help.

[yvegeny]

Does no one know the answer to this, or is too simple of a question that I should know it already? Should I just chop some and give it a shot?

[memesuze]

the onion and pepper will get mushy once the water in the cells freezes and then thaws, breaking the cell walls. I suspect that celery would do the same - possibly of use in a stew, but not for anything else. I'd blanch the carrots briefly before freezing, but all in all I think this is not worth it. Just keep your knife sharp and whip through what's needed for the meal in no time....the more you practice your chopping, the faster it will get.

[petite tête de chou]

You'll be just fine freezing your vegetables. I wouldn't use them as a fresh vegetable, only in cooked dishes and would freeze them in separate bags. And no question is too simple.

[Jason Perlow]

You'll definitely improve the quality of your frozen chopped veggies if you vacuum seal them, like in a FoodSaver.

[Rachel Perlow]

Think about how you'll use the veggies. For example, lots of recipes start by chopping an onion and sauteing it. So, chop a bunch of onions (count how many onions you started with), saute them until limp, just about the time you'd add whatever the next ingredient is. Then take them off heat and divide the cooked onions into the same number of portions as number of onions you started with. You'll be surprised how small the volume is, probably about 2 tbs. So, put one onion's worth each into baggies (the small snack sized baggies work well for this), and then all the small baggies into one larger "freezer" baggie. Every time you're making a recipe that begins by sauteing or sweating a chopped onion, you've saved several minutes by not having to peel, chop, wash the cutting board and knife, tears, etc.). Just turn on the heat, add the frozen onion, and start with whatever is the next step.

I've done this with celery as well. Celery is one of those veggies that usually starts to go bad before I've used the whole bunch. Saute & freeze before it gets too wilty.

Peppers don't do as well frozen, and carrots are so easy to find already frozen, what's the point of freezing your own?

[yvegeny]

Thanks you guys. I appreciate the help. I think I will go ahead and saute them before I freeze them. That seems like a really good idea.