Since I rarely use the entire bunch of celery available for purchase in the grocery store I often blanch and then freeze the celery for later use in soups and stews. I don’t like to see that large bunch go bad in the vegetable crisper so freezing it makes perfect sense.

What is blanching? Blanching is briefly introducing said food item, usually fruit or vegetable, to boiling water for a few minutes. This helps your vegetables to retain color, texture, and flavor when preserved by freezing or canning.

You might have also heard of blanching tomatoes briefly to remove their skins.

The type of blanching I am doing is to help the celery retain it’s color and flavor.

To freeze my celery I put a small pot of water on to boil. Then I cut the celery into 1 inch pieces. I drop a small handful of the cut celery into the boiling water and boil rapidly for about 3 minutes.

Once I remove the celery from the boiling water I dump it in ice cold water to stop the cooking process and then lay it on a towel a few mintues to remove excess water.

Then I lay the celery on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer until frozen.

Once the celery has frozen it is bagged and labeled.

Voila!

Nice neat pieces of cut up celery ready for my many recipes.
Some other veggies you can blanch

• green beans
• carrots
• corn (kernels)
• okra
• peas