Let’s Discuss Zucchini


This time of year it’s like feast or famine with these green beauties. Here are some ways of preserving your bountiful harvest to enjoy later.


What to do with excess supply:

Zucchinis are great in soups, stews, stir-fry, casseroles, and of course chocolate zucchini cake, even though you’re probably a bit tired of it right now, in the winter you’ll probably be so happy you learned how to freeze zucchini, that you can just pull out of your freezer.

So, here’s what you need to know so you can freeze your zucchini and enjoy it year-round!


How to Freeze Zucchini – Prep with a plan, very important.

First, start by preparing it for the purpose that you’ll be using it for.

Slices
Chunks

If you have a lot of zucchini, it’s nice to prepare it in a few different ways so you can use it for different things throughout the winter. You’ll probably want a few larger slices for baking into casseroles, and some nice chunks for soups, stews, and stir-fry.

If you plan on making zucchini muffins, breads, or cakes, you should grate it now and portion it off into 1-2 cup amounts, so you can grab exactly what you’ll need for your recipes.


Blanch It

Once you’ve got your zucchini all prepared, it’s a good idea to blanch it in boiling water for about 2-3 minutes. This helps deactivate the enzymes that naturally discolour zucchini over time and turn it mushy. Once the 2-3 minutes are up, plunge your zucchini into a big bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.

Don’t worry about blanching for your grated portions of zucchini because you kind of want it to turn to mush and break down into your cake anyway.

Are you drowning in your bumper crop of zucchini? Here's how to freeze zucchini so you can preserve that bountiful harvest to enjoy later.


Freeze It

For the actual freezing part of the process, lay the zucchini out on cookie sheets in your freezer so the pieces don’t all freeze together in a clump. Once everything’s nice and frozen, you can transfer it to plastic containers, zip lock bags, or whatever you’ll be using to store it in the freezer.