So many berries to choose from…and so many with special sales prices. Of course, there’s no substitute for fresh berries during their peak season, but off season, it’s good to have some frozen ones on hand. There are some tricks though to freezing yummy berries – and knowing when NOT to freeze them.
The first time I froze berries, I washed ‘em all first and ended up with “BLOCK O’ BERRIES” frozen so tightly together it would’ve taken a pick-axe to get those babies apart! Sigh…oh well. Then I learned these neat tricks.
3 categories of berries: toss, eat, freeze
First of all, which berries should you freeze?
Make sure you not only check the bottom of berry packages when choosing them at the store, but also open ‘em and take out a few berries to look at everything thoroughly. Don’t buy a package that has mold you can easily see OR a lot of juice in the package…those are past their prime.
And I’m squeamish about buying berries in large packages as they’re fragile, and strawberries in particular are also heavy enough to squish their neighbors!
You may find some that are shriveled up, have mold on ‘em, or have burst and are covered in juice. Toss these out! Nobody wants that!
Freezing won’t improve your berries so make sure you only freeze really good firm ones. I do what I call “rolling” the berries to determine what to eat now and what to freeze. Gently take a berry between your fingers and roll it around – no squeezing. You’ll either feel nice, firm berry flesh OR you might feel some soft spots. If soft spots, eat ‘em now…well not right that moment, unless you just want to, but they should be eaten fresh. If they’re super squishy, toss ‘em. (Strawberries don’t work for rolling, but I’ll get to them in a minute.)
The nice, firm ones? Those are the ones to freeze. Now here’s where my technique varies a little between blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries.
Blueberries
Don’t wash your blueberries first. Just drop the firm ones in a quart freezer bag, lightly squeeze out all the air you can, seal and freeze. A quick rinse right when you want to use ‘em will almost completely defrost ‘em anyway.
And if you’re using ‘em in yogurt in your lunch or as part of overnight oatmeal, that gives ‘em plenty of time to defrost. Or don’t bother defrosting at all! I love ‘em just cold…great to suck on as a small treat!
Blackberries and Raspberries
Again, don’t wash ‘em first. These berries in particular are really fragile. Put wax paper on an old cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer. Lay the berries on the wax paper separated from all the other berries.
Clear a nice flat spot for this to sit in your freezer, and freeze ‘em for an hour or two until they’re solid. Then just drop ‘em in a quart freezer bag, let the air out, seal and freeze.
Strawberries
These are just too big for “rolling,” but that means they are big enough you can see the soft spots as they tend to sink in or be a different color. The green leaves are easy enough to grasp and pull off, then if you want to “de-stem” them, Erin Chase of 5dollardinners.com says you can push a straw from the top (with the stem inside the straw) all the way through to the tip and get those out. I found I really needed a smoothie straw to do this, but a great tip.
Cut off any soft spots. Then I actually do rinse these and cut into slices or chunks or whatever I want. Freezing is the same as for the blackberries. Once they’re frozen, in the bag they go!
Why not gallon bags? You just don’t want to freeze that much together. Freezing in just quart increments will help you go through the contents of a bag faster so you don’t get as many ice crystals from opening and closing the bag.
Berries still available on sale in your neck of the woods? Have a favorite way to use frozen berries? Let me know in the comments below!
More on berry and fruit prices…
