Written by Kristen, Contributing Writer
It’s Blueberry Season!
It’s hard to beat fresh, seasonal berries, especially when you have access to local fruits that you can even pick yourself. The flavor can’t be beat! They are so sweet, so tasty, and sadly, so temporary. Berries aren’t known to have a long shelf-life!
One of my favorite things to do in July is to buy blueberries in bulk from a local farm market. They aren’t grown there, so these berries aren’t quite as fresh as the you-pick varieties we can find at the orchards around us. But this busy mom has limits, and she really likes having the convenience of 10 pound boxes of bulk blueberries!
I put these blueberries in smoothies, oatmeal, desserts, muffins, and more. With all of those uses, I’ve found that 40 pounds is a good amount to get us through the year. While it is much more convenient to buy so many blueberries already picked than to try to do the labor myself, I do come home from the store with an awful lot of blueberries to freeze at once.
The Typical Routine for Freezing Berries
The typical routine for freezing berries is pretty much the same regardless of where you look:
- Wash and sort berries.
- Remove stems and hulls (if they have them) and cut up large berries, like strawberries, if desired.
- Lay on a cookie sheet or pan in a single layer and place in the freezer for a few hours or overnight.
- Once frozen, transfer the berries to a freezer bag that has been labeled with the berry name and date.
- Keep the berries in a deep freezer for long term storage.
It’s not hard. It’s not exactly time-consuming. But when you have 40 pounds of blueberries to freeze, finding enough cookie sheets and pans to stick in the freezer, and enough freezer space to lay them on, is a bit of a challenge. This year I was especially pressed for time, and I didn’t want to have many of my precious seasonal berries end up in the compost! I decided there must be a better way, and there is!
The Easiest Way to Freeze Blueberries
Now, this slacker simplified way of freezing blueberries will only work for blueberries. Don’t try it with strawberries or raspberries. If you have blueberry cousins to freeze, like saskatoons, this might work for them, too, but I’m not sure.
The steps really can’t be easier:
- Wash blueberries in a large colander, then gently shake to remove excess water.
- Dump the berries into a 9×13 baking dish lined with a kitchen towel, filling about 1/3 or 1/2 of the way.
- Gently shake the pan from side to side to shake off more of the water drops and pick out any smashed, squishy, or otherwise bad berries.
- Dump the berries into a heavy-duty freezer bag (labeled with the date and berry name if you want), filling about 2/3 of the way.
- Lay the bag flat in the freezer, spreading the berries out evenly in the bag. After they’ve frozen in the bags completely, move the berries around inside the bag to break up any clumps.
- Keep them in a deep freezer for the best results, and if you are freezing 40 pounds of berries like me, you probably need that extra freezer space.
Voila! Removing that extra cookie sheet step allowed me to quickly get all of those blueberries in the freezer in only an hour or two instead of many hours and lots of waiting over a few days.
You’re probably wondering if the berries aren’t just one giant frozen clump inside of the freezer bags. I’m very glad to announce that blueberries have some sort of magical power that prevents them from freezing together. There’s probably some rational reason for it, but I don’t know what it is. Also, since your berries may be a little damp when you put them in, you might find some extra ice crystals in the freezer bag. This doesn’t bother me, but if it does you, you can try to more thoroughly dry the berries before bagging them.
There may still be some merit in freezing the berries on a cookie sheet first. I’m not sure, but I’ll find out as the winter goes on and I pull out my freezer bags of berries. I have a feeling that any slight disadvantages will pale in comparison with the time and effort this simplified method just saved me, though!
Do you freeze blueberries in the summer? Have you ever tried just putting them in a freezer bag, or do you use some other method?
About Kristen
I use my salad spinner for the blueberries. There may be a little bit of dampness left but they don’t freeze together. Other berries may be too soft for this. I also spin green beans that have been blanched and put in cold water. I then put in freezer bags, they work out just fine.
Great idea on the salad spinner, Val! I don’t have one, but I’ll bet that works even better than my towel-in-the-baking-dish step!
Can I just say – that as one who grew up in Michigan – amongst the best blueberries ever – that NOT washing them before freezing makes it even easier! Truly, just stick them in the freezer in a large bag or container – they won’t stick together (promise!) and then you rinse them in a colander while thawing them. It’s amazing how they keep their shape, color, and taste!
I’ve read that, too, Joy! The sources I read also said that you could then wash them after taking them out of the freezer. I didn’t do it that way since I wanted to just be able to pour them into whatever I was making without rinsing or thawing. If I picked my own and knew what exactly was on them, I think I’d skip the washing step.
We have always just rinsed them off and put them in ziplocks and it works fine. Didnt know about the cookie sheet step. Do you know the reason behind it?
Berries like strawberries will stick together terribly if you were to just put them in freezer bags straight. I’ve even had some that I thought were frozen “enough” after a few hours on the cookie sheet freeze completely into a solid mass once I put them all in a freezer bag. When you freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet, the berries can be used individually in smoothies or whatever else you want to use. They are just easier to measure, pour and get out of the bag.
So a year later, how did the new method work out for you? From everything I’ve read, the primary reason to freeze them on a cookie sheet is to avoid them freezing into a clump in your bag. What was your experience like?