Freezing Peaches

It’s midsummer and therefore peach season! The Peach Truck travels our way a couple of times each summer, so we took advantage of the opportunity to preserve their deliciousness and do a short series on what to do with a box of peaches from The Peach Truck. The absolute easiest way to preserve peaches or any fruit for that matter is to freeze it. Let’s start freezing peaches!

Freezing Peaches (or any fruit)

1. Choose fresh, ripe but not overripe fruit, free from damage
2. Rinse as needed to remove soil and debris
3. Depending on the fruit you are freezing, you might want to peel it. We don’t mind the peach skin, so didn’t bother. I do peel fruit such as bananas, kiwi and pineapple before freezing.
4. Cut into easily usable pieces. For the peaches, I sliced each one into eighths. For most berries, no cutting is necessary.
5. If you are concerned about the fruit changing color due to oxidation, you can dip each piece after cutting into a bowl of water with a splash of lemon juice added. We haven’t had issues and don’t bother with this step most of the time.
6. Place the individual pieces onto a tray lined with parchment paper. The parchment paper makes removing the pieces from the tray quite easy. You can skip this step, but individually freezing the pieces before placing them in the container makes it easy to use only a portion of the fruit from the container without having to thaw the entire bit.
7. Place the tray into the freezer for a couple hours or more, until fruit pieces are pretty solid.
8. While waiting for the fruit to freeze, label your freezer bag or container with contents and date. Trust me, it’s a good idea and in a few months, you won’t regret it.
9. Once they’re frozen, place the fruit pieces into a freezer bag or other freezer appropriate container.
10. Seal up a zip freezer bag except for a tiny portion where a straw is fitted in, suck out as much air as you can and seal the last bit while doing it.

Now you have the sweet, delicious flavor of summer available for months!

Use Frozen Fruit

• for canning recipes, such as jam, sauces and syrup
• for jams, sauces etc. to be eaten immediately
• to makes pie, cobbler or other baked goods
• over yogurt or ice cream
• in smoothies
• in rice, pasta or meat dishes

Keep in mind, freezing vegetables is also easy, but most must be blanched first. We will have a video on freezing vegetables soon.

Quick tips

• The easiest way to cut a peach is to cut from the stem end around the crease or bump back to the stem end, twist slightly. The pit will have the most exposure this way, making it even easier to remove.
• If you have a vacuum sealer, that is a great option to seal out air that can cause freezer burn, though you will have to reseal the bag if you don’t use the entire contents of it.

Watch the Freezing Peaches Video: