Here, I laid multiple layers of paper towel on my counter top and placed squeezed bundles of greens to drain. I measured the piles based on serving sizes. I used about 1 handful per person to amount to a serving. I bagged the greens according to the servings I would typically use for a given meal or recipe. I used Ziploc freezer bags and squeezed out as much air as possible. Make sure to label and date your packages! Greens can be kept frozen for 8 to 12 months. I am passionate about good food, cooking for family and friends, and creating recipes that form lasting memories from one generation to the next.
I hope you find inspiration for cooking and creating here! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. This past weekend, along with weeding my heart out, the kids and I decided to harvest our spinach and some of our Swiss Chard. Because I like most vegetables preserved by freezing and I have ample freezer space with several small freezers and a large deep freeze, I decided to blanch and freeze the great green mass!
Some leaves are naturally big, like collards and Swiss chard, so make your best judgment. Stay away from discolored, yellow leaves and leaves with a lot of bug damage. Did you know that it is recommended to have a minimum of cups of vegetables per day, depending on whether you are male or female? This recommendation is based on basic nutrition needs.
In addition, if you are physically active in any way, you should actually have more. Eating various greens is a great way to get your vegetables throughout the day.
You could potentially get several greens in a fresh salad. Greens, particularly dark and leafy greens, are some of the highest recommended vegetables to include in your diet — for a number of reasons.
Can you freeze greens fresh or does it require blanching in order to freeze them? The recommended process to freeze greens is to blanch them first. However, it is not required. You can freeze your fresh greens and other vegetables without freezing them if you like.
Keep reading to learn everything you should know about freezing your greens, and then some. There are a number of different vegetables that qualify as greens. You might be familiar with collard greens or leafy greens, but the term greens actually encompass these items and more. You might recognize many of these greens as leafy-type vegetables that are most commonly used in salads. While that might be where you know them best, they can be used for many other things as well. Nearly all of these can be cooked and served as part of warm dishes as well.
Greens are super dense in nutrition. Yes, they are just another vegetable but ultimately, these nutrient-rich vegetables provide superior nutrition in comparison to many other vegetables. From most greens, you can expect to find excellent sources of calcium, folate, and loads of vitamins like D, C, A, and even B.
In addition to these nutrients that are in almost all of the listed greens above, some of the greens have additional minerals like manganese, potassium, etc.
In many cases, these greens can be a better source even then the very best multi-vitamin on Amazon. These foods have tons of vitamins and nutrients but are also relatively low in calories.
This means you could essentially eat more of them and enjoy a larger meal that is rich in greens as well as the benefits of incorporating these greens as a part of your diet.
Here are some health benefits that are associated with consuming greens in your diet. These are just a few of the health benefits that have been associated with the consumption of greens.
There is a slew of benefits that come with the territory and they are a valuable food source for you to incorporate into your daily life. While it is typically recommended that you blanch greens before freezing them, you can actually freeze them without blanching them. To make dishes using uncooked frozen collard greens, you will have to start with the collard greens, usually boiling or steaming them until they are done before adding any other ingredients.
This allows the collard greens to lose their toughness and become much more palatable, turning them back into a delicious source of Vitamin C and other nutrients.
Collard greens are traditionally frozen after cooking, usually in small bags that are ready to use and be added into any dish where you may want to use them. Cooked and frozen collard greens are entirely safe and delicious to eat, with many of the recipes that you may find requiring that the collard greens be frozen before you add them.
Freezing collard greens became popular owing to the amount of work that needs to go into cooking them. The boiling, steaming, or cooking process to make collard greens soft and edible can take several hours, and doing small batches at a time can be extremely time-consuming. Almost all collard greens are boiled in the modern world and then frozen to extend their shelf life from a few days to several months. You must remember that frozen collard greens do not lose any of their vitamins or nutrients, something that can happen to other frozen vegetables.
You do not have to blanch your collard greens before freezing them , as they are perfectly happy being frozen as is. If you want the full flavors of the greens when you do start cooking them, it may be better to blanch them before freezing. It is believed that blanching collard greens, the process of cooking them quickly in salted water, draw out more flavor and colors in the collard greens than simply freezing them. Usually, you can taste the difference when using blanched frozen collard greens and normal collard greens.
However, some believe this same effect can be reached when the frozen collard greens are prepared the same way after thawing them. This belief arose from the natural added flavor and color that salt adds to any dish. The only real way to decide which is better is by trying both and finding the preparation that you prefer. The traditional way of preparing collard greens starts by cleaning the greens, blanching them, and then putting the freshly blanched collard greens in a bucket of ice water.
After this, you remove the collard greens by using a colander and then bagging each set of collard greens, placing them in the fridge. Placing the blanched greens in ice water after blanching rapidly cools down the collard greens, which many see as a step of pre-freezing them. Helping to lock the flavors in even further, which makes the collard greens so much better when you do start to use them in your dishes.
An important step that you should always include, even with fresh collard greens, is wiping them down with a paper towel. This may seem odd, but reducing the amount of moisture that is on top of the leaves will save them for the long run, allowing the collard greens to comfortably stay fresh without most of the taste being lost to the frozen water. Freezing fresh greens can be more complicated than simply throwing them in a baggy and allowing them to freeze.
While this can be done for the maximum amount of taste to be kept for the long-term it is best to vacuum pack and then freeze the collard greens. This ensures that the minimum amount of ice crystals can form within the leaves.
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