Freezing Kale

As I was telling my twitter friends that I was freezing kale and spinach this week, I got several inquiries in how I do this. I found this old post that I wrote last year for a different blog and thought this would be the perfect time to bring this post back to light. Enjoy!

June 25, 2009

I am fairly new to growing veggies. This is our third year to grow a garden, but the first year to attempt kale and spinach. To our excitement, they have really been thriving. I am positive our compost has a lot to do with how well our garden is growing this year (and all the rain we have had). I have been happily plucking spinach and kale from the garden every morning, before I even get dressed, to put in our breakfast smoothies.

I started to realize that I needed to be plucking more or else it is going to go bad or the bugs will eat it. So, I went out and harvested a ton of the greens for freezing. We now have a ton of kale and spinach in the freezer to use this winter and are awaiting the next round of kale to come up in the garden.

I used to be very intimidated by freezing produce...like it was going to be this big huge task that I would never be able to complete. Well, I was wrong. I went to my friend google and asked how to freeze greens. Google showed me many websites that calmed my fears and showed me step by step how easy it is to freeze greens.

In a nut shell, you harvest, you wash, you blanch (2 min in boiling water), you soak in ice water, you drain, you freeze....easy peasy!

Through my google search I found a few different methods for freezing my kale and below is the method I went with.

Have fun!

~~HMM

Harvest your Kale wash it in the sink with water

Blanch your kale, by submerging in boiling water for 2 minutes


After the 2 minutes is up, transfer the kale from the boiling water into a bowl of ice water for about 2 minutes (save the boiling water for the next batch)

Then you can either lay it out to dry, or put it in a salad spinner. I just dried it a bit in a towel then put it in the zip lock freezer bag. You can use a vacuum sealer if you have one, or do what I did. Zip the bag closed all the way except for one little opening big enough for a straw. Stick the straw in and suck all the air out, then zip it shut all the way.

Then label your bags and stick them in the freezer! All done!

Freezing Kale