Preserving 101 - Focusing on Blanching

When you are looking at preserving food there are two major options: blanching or canning.

Blanching is a short-term pretreatment where food is briefly boiled or steamed and then plunged into ice water to halt enzyme activity, primarily before freezing or drying.

Whereas, canning is a long-term preservation method that sterilizes food in sealed jars using high heat (water bath or pressure) to kill bacteria, allowing shelf storage for 1-5 years.

You need some good resources - I love the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It is my primary, go to reference.

I have also used Ohio State’s Food Preservation Guidelines as well - this is about a 7 page document

Blanching is a two-step process. Food is briefly cooked in boiling water or steam. It's then quickly placed in ice water to prevent it from cooking all the way through.

• Blanching helps to preserve the flavor, color and texture of fresh produce when it’s frozen.

• Blanching helps slow the loss of vitamins.

• Blanching helps cleanse the surface of dirt and some bacteria.

Let me walk you through broccoli (with pictures) and this works the same for nearly every vegetable. Broccoli is cut off the stock with a knife. Trim off any extra leaves while you are still outside.

What an amazing broccoli harvest this year! OH my, the boys were so young!

Broccoli will have worms in it, so you want to soak it in a salt water bath for about 3 hours. Rinse off the salt before you begin.

Then get your crew lined up. I always have a “good” bowl of cut vegetables and a “scrap bowl.” You’ll want sharp knives, cutting boards, and paper towels.

Those boys are actually putting up beans in this picture, but we use the same set-up for all sessions of blanching.

You’ll have one pot for boiling water. I prefer to put a colander in it so after I dump in the broccoli I can fish them out in one swoop. If you don't have a colander then a tool like what is in the top left of this image works well.

Broccoli needs to boil for 3 minutes.

The ice bath will be exactly the same amount of time at the boiling time. (True of all vegetables.)

You’ll need to constantly replace your ice and eventually drain off that rising water level.

After the ice bath I drain the broccoli on towels. I use to just use kitchen towels, but now I use old bath towels. I also will layer them on top of one another as the weight wicks out the water faster.

Once they are fairly dried out I put 2 cups per freezer quart bag. That is just the amount our family regularly eats in a meal, so that can be adjusted to fit your family size/needs.