Nearly all vegetables can be successfully frozen. The exceptions are salad vegetables such as cucumber and lettuce which have such a high water content they are unpleasant to eat when defrosted again, tomatoes are best frozen without skins. Remember the golden rule of successful food preserving, that you should only use produce in top quality condition and try to freeze immediately after harvesting then you are well on the way to success.

Equipment

You are going to need a large pan, a wire basket (saves you boiling up loads of saucepans of water), a bowl of ice cold water, freezable containers and labels.

How to go about it

All vegetables must be prepared, in the same way you would were you to be cooking them for a meal, and then blanched in boiling water prior to freezing. So once the veg is preparred put a large pan of water on to boil, I don't add salt but if you like to this is the time to. Load your wire basket with preparred vegetables and place carefully in the boiling water. Bring the pan back to the boil and cook for 2 - 4 mins depending upon the veg. When ready remove the basket and empty the contents into the ice cold water, this halts the cooking process. Remove the veg from the cold water and drain them, when cool and pack into portions in freezable containers, leave to cool completely then label and freeze. If you want a loose pack then lay the veg out on a tray to partially freeze before you pack into containers.

If you have a large batch to get through you may want to operate a mini production line, either use two bowls of ice water or a very large bowl and keep topping up with ice. Whilst one load is cooling in the bowl of water put the next batch on to cook etc.

A quick note about defrosting

Most of your vegetables are better cooked from frozen, especially if you are going to boil them. If steaming or baking it is best to partially defrost them if they are compacted into a solid lump.

Happy freezing!