If you grow your own fruit and vegetables, you will always have a glut. One of the easiest ways to store and keep your glut fresh, is by freezing it. However, not everything is suitable for freezing. Lettuce, radish, kale and cucumber are just a few things that aren’t suitable for the freezer. 

Most vegetables require blanching to help preserve the texture, look and flavour of them. Blanching is a simple process, simply get a pan of boiling water and place your vegetables into the pan for a few minutes. Once you’ve removed the vegetables, put them in a bowl of ice cold water which will stop the cooking process.

Once the vegetables have cooled down, drain off the water and leave them to dry. You can then pack them into freezer bags and store in the freezer until they are required.

Try not to freeze too much in one go. Freezing too much in one go means your freezer has to work harder meaning it will take longer to freeze the veg you’ve just blanched. Larger ice crystals will also form which can damage the cell structure of your veg.

One way to reduce the load on your freezer, is by pre-chilling your veg beforehand in the fridge before placing them in the freezer. This will help freeze your veg more quickly which will reduce the size of the ice crystals.