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Average Member
 
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I'm over run with peppers & squash right now some of the zucchini is going to be ground & froze for bread over the winter but my question is with the other smaller squash and the peppers if I slice & vaccum seal before freezing will they be all mushy when I thaw them out? or will the vaccum sealing help keep them firmer?
Lord keep you arm around my shoulder & your hand over my mouth If God brings you to it, He will see you through it 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.'
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Junior Member
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| We froze squash, zucchini, and peppers last year. Not mushy when thawed. This year we had the same problem as you. We ended up with 45 quarts of squash and 45 of zucchini. Some of the zucchini got pretty big so we cut them into "fingers" and breaded them before freezing. Just take them out of the freezer and into the fryer. Nice and crunchy. Ken
Deep in the South Carolina Lowcountry
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Advanced Member
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| If you got peppers. We cut our up and measured and frozen them into ice trays. Once frozen we'd poped them out and bagged. So when we need them we just reached in and got a cube. Never had enough s and z to put up.
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Starting Member
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Last Login: 12/20/2009 8:32:05 AM
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| I have had a great deal of success freezing bell peppers in regular freezer bags. I have canned most of my banana peppers - have a great recipe for banana pepper rings, and they are awesome on sandwiches and in salads!
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Starting Member
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| Just read an article in Mary Janes Farm and it said you can vacumm seal sliced peppers. Have tried it yet as I was out of vacumm bags but as soon as they come I will since I am like you and have so many peppers of so many varieties and no tomatoes (blight) to can any salsa
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Starting Member
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Starting Member
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| (sorry bout the late reply) The main thing to remember when freezing is that the water inside the food has a chance to create crystals. Those crystals are larger than the orginal water because as water freezes it grows. So these crystals break cell walls and cause the mushiness that you mentioned. There are two ways to help prevent this: 1. Freeze things fast. The faster they freeze the smaller the ice crystals will be (hence why flash freezing is prefered by some major companies). This means less damage to the finished thawed product. The best way I have found to freeze things quickly is to place a half sheet pan into the freezer (or quarter sheet pan or whatever will fit in your freezer) then clean and cut your vegi's. After you dry your veggies off, place them on the frozen sheet pan in a single layer and place them back into the freezer. This will allow for the most surface area possible to be hit by freezing air. After they are frozen then pull them out, break them apart with your hands (should be very easy) and fill some plastic ziplocks, label, and throw back into the freezer. 2. Don't open your freezer if you can help it. This rush of warm air let in by you opening the door causes the outermost layer of frozen materials to melt. When you shut the door it then refreezes trapping some of the particles from the air into the newly formed ice. This may not seem like much but after 6 months or more of daily openings it can quickly add up to a whole bunch of nastiness. (Supposedly this is the cause of "freezer burn" but I am not sure about that.) Anyway, if you are using broths and stocks and such, where you don't have any texture to worry about then you can just relax and freeze then in ziplocks or something. There are techniques and such for doing stocks too but I don't really have time to explain them. Hope this helps, Alabackyarder
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