If you cut up fruit and stick it in a bag and place it in the freezer, when you go to use it in its frozen state, it will all be stuck together. This can be annoying if you're trying to portion control and it's hard to separate, and also bad if you have a plastic-pitcher style blender that can crack with heavy weight shifting around.
To get your frozen fruit to not stick together, chop your fruit and lay it out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Pop it in the freezer until frozen, then transfer to airtight freezer bags. I like to chop my fruit in same sized portions so I can count how many is a serving if I don't have time to weigh it.
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Select fruits for freezing that are ripe (or have started to ripen), have good color and are free from cuts, scars and mold. They should feel firm in texture (not hard), be free of soft spots and have a sweet odor.
My granddaughter and I love fruit. We really miss it in the winter time. I don't like fruit after it has been frozen so I tried experimenting with strawberries and found a delicious way to have them all year.
It's the season for fresh fruit. This is just a quick tip for freezing fruit. When I put the fruit in baggies for the freezer I put 2 cups of fruit in each bag.
We have fruit trees, and end up with far more fruit than we can eat fresh, despite sharing with friends and neighbors. I go to the restaurant supply store and get a sleeve of 5 1/2 ounce individual serving cups (I pay about 5 dollars for 250, and several dollars more for lids) which means about 3 cents for a set.
This extension site offers a very detailed and technical look at freezing fruits. "Frozen foods can add variety to your meals year-round.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
I have lots of summer fruits and end up having to throw them out. I'd like to make a fruit salad to freeze. Can anyone give me some help please? I don't have any canning equipment.
By Sandra from Newcastle, Australia
Check out this link for freezing assorted fruits and veggies:
www.uga.edu/
Many fruits simply turn to mush when frozen and and thawed (even thawed in the refrigerator) and will need to be used in assorted recipes and things like smoothies. Unless they are 'just the right fruits' it's doubtfull they'll freeze well for fresh fruit salads.
I got a food dehydrator at a thrift shop and use that to dehydrate much of the fruit from my trees. I then put them in plastic bags in the refrigerator.
Greetings, you can also hydrate fruits in the oven or on a sunny day on a screen in the sun, it takes about 2 days and you need to bring them in at night to avoid extra moisture. Be sure to cover the fruit with cheesecloth to protect from bugs. This is not quite the answer you were looking but it does save the fruit, when my kids were at home I would chop and freeze fruits in small portions and we would eat them frozen, still do with my grandaughter.
I'm looking for a dry preservative for freezing fruit.
Vicki from West Virginia
Do you mean ascorbic acid? Fruit Fresh is found where you find canning supplies. Keeps the fruit from browning.
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A great way to save money is to freeze fruit when it is in season and inexpensive, so that you can use it throughout the year. This is also useful if you have a garden and want to enjoy the "fruits" of your labor for longer.
