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Garden Fresh from Your Freezer

You can enjoy fruits and vegetables from your garden all through the winter. Try these tips to turn your freezer into a bounty of fresh-picked flavor.

Your garden looks gorgeous. There are rows of perfect yellow bell peppers, vines laden with green beans, and you've managed to grow more zucchini than you ever thought possible. But you're worried. Everything needs to be eaten—now. An impossible task. Before you start begging the neighbors to help ravage your garden, consider this: You can preserve your veggies with little effort and enjoy their just-picked freshness all year long. We spoke with Dawn Jackson Blatner, RD, of Northwestern Memorial Wellness Institute, in Chicago, and a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, to learn more.

Q: What are the benefits of freezing veggies and fruits from your garden? A: The benefits are three-fold: 1. You don't lose nutrients when you freeze produce at its prime. 2. You do all the cutting and cleaning work ahead of time so the produce is easy to grab and use. 3. You have produce year-round in the freezer, so it's always on hand.

Tip: Although produce can safely last indefinitely in the freezer, use frozen produce within eight to 12 months for best quality.

Q: What freezes well—and what doesn't? A: With the exception of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green onions, most veggies freeze well—but you have to blanch them for best results. Blanching stops the action of enzymes in the vegetable. If the enzyme activity isn't stopped, it can decrease the flavor, color, and texture of the vegetables. Blanching is easy to do by dropping fresh vegetables into boiling water for just a few minutes and then submerging them in icy, cold water to quickly stop the cooking.

Typically, most fruit, such as apples, peaches and even strawberries, are washed and then cut and dipped into lemon juice and water to stop the browning process before they're frozen.

Q: What are the best storage containers? A: Always use materials meant specifically for freezing. Freezer bags and freezer wrap are moisture and vapor resistant, durable, leak-proof, not brittle when frozen, and easy to write on to note the contents and date of the package.

Q: When it's time to use fresh-frozen produce, how should you go about doing it? Are there tricks to defrosting? A: Vegetables should be cooked straight from the freezer using a microwave, steamer, broiler, grill, sauté pan, or roaster. Fruits are typically best thawed in the fridge for a few hours. Eating fruits when they're still slightly frozen helps make them seem less mushy.