Freezer Vegetables
I am a soup gal. Some of you regular readers may have noticed that last year. If you are a new reader to my blog, you will start to take notice real soon since soup season is coming up. I am already whipping out soup recipes.
I LOVE soup! Like, LoVe, LOVE soup! Soups can be super easy & comforting for the cool fall & winter weather coming up. Some of you may say, “Soup is not easy. Soup sucks to make because I am chopping vegetables all the time. And then the extra vegetables go bad & I have to throw them out.”
If you are a soup person like me, then you will want to do this trick. You can even use these for pot pies, pot roasts, & casseroles. No need to throw out any vegetables. Freeze your vegetables! Then you will have most of the chopping done when it comes time to prepare your soups & other recipes.
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Most soups call for Mirepoix – which is basically an onion, celery, carrot mixture. In the cold weather months, I keep these three things in stock in my freezer, just because I know I make soups, pot pies, & other casseroles that use them. And there is never any waste.
You ready to learn how to do it? Ok. I will show you:
Celery
Rinse & dice celery. Sometimes it is good to put the celery in a bowl with a paper towel so you can pat off any water spots from rinsing. This helps it not clump so bad once it is frozen.
Place it into a labeled zip-top bag. Squeeze any air out & seal shut. Place into the freezer.
Onion
Dice an onion.
Place diced onion into a labeled zip-top bag. Squeeze out any air & seal shut. Place into the freezer. You may want to double bag this one because sometimes it stinks up your freezer depending on how strong the onion is. It also helps the smell if you don’t touch the outside of the bag with onion hands.
Carrots
Rinse, peel & dice carrots.
Place carrots into a zip-top bag, squeeze out any excess air & seal shut. Place into the freezer.
Voila! Your vegetables are ready for your recipes!
TO USE: You may have to break up the dices in the bag before measuring them for recipes, but it’s easy to do if you bang it on the edge of the counter.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Freezing these vegetables does soften them, so they are good for recipes where you cook them anyway: Soups, Stews, Pot Roasts, Pot Pies, Casseroles, etc. The celery will not be crisp to use for chicken salads & things like that. Just FYI.
I’ve always froze extra onions and thought I was being smart by freezing “left overs” from celery and onions to season my chicken broth with. I take the leaves and the root (after washing well) of celery, onions outer skin and root that you don’t use and freeze them. When I have roast chicken I pull off all the meat and keep the carcass in the freezer. Any time I need chicken broth I can make a flavorful broth with my scraps of celery and onion plus the chicken carcass. No preservatives or extra sodium in my broth. Not to mention it saves a trip to the store to get canned chicken broth.
Great tips Joy! When I worked in a restaurant one time, the head chef yelled at me for throwing out the celery leaves. He said they provide the most flavor. I haven’t made that mistake again! 😉
Hi Amber
Should you blanch the vegetables before freezing?
You can, but I don’t. They cook just fine in soups and things later on. Thanks for asking!
If you have a little extra time and freezer space, you can put the cut up veggies (or fresh fruit like blueberries, strawberries, etc.) on a baking sheet and put it in the freezer so they’ll freeze separately and then you can dump them in their freezer bag. They don’t get all stuck together that way. This has worked really well form me. I love the freezing cut up veggies idea.
I have done it like that too! Thanks for sharing!
I was just wondering about freezing celery! Thank you for the post!
Awesome! Glad my post could help!