Preserving Leafy Garden Greens Through Blanching and Freezing

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Part of the garden winterization process is to harvest what can be harvested, before cold weather kills it all. While I love harvesting and cooking with my homegrown produce, "harvest time" often yields waaay too much at one time for me to use, and so I preserve some of the harvest. Green beans can be pickled, winter squash can be cured and stored in the basement (as can garlic), dried beans can be shelled, etc. etc. But leafy greens? The only thing to do with them is to blanch & freeze them.

For my rainbow chard, I cut off most of the leaves, except for a handful of the smallest ones (they may continue to grow into winter).

Then I get a big pot of water boiling, and prepare an ice bath. I boil chard leaves for 1 minute before moving them to the ice bath. Chard stems get 2 minutes boiling before ice bath. Then, they can all be placed in zip-loc bags, have their air removed as best as possible, and stored flat in the freezer for future use in soups and tasty dishes calling for wilted chard.

This process would not, say, be good for preserving lettuce...