by Cynthia Lair Nutritionist

Question:

Can you pre-chop and then freeze vegetables for later use?

Answer:

Vegetables begin to lose vitamins, minerals and enzymes as soon as they are cut. The best way to preserve vegetables for freezing is to do what frozen food manufacturers do: blanche the vegetables. To do that, cut the vegetables, drop them into boiling water for 30 to 45 seconds. Remove and lunge into ice water. Then let the vegetables drain and freeze on a cookie sheet. Once frozen, store in zip-lock plastic bags.

When you freeze vegetables, you can preserve some of the vitamins and minerals, but lose the enzymes. The texture of some vegetables is affected by freezing as the water in the vegetable becomes frozen slowly in a home freezer, which stretches the cell walls. Seems to me that the time spent going through all it takes to freeze the vegetables properly could be spent simply cutting and preparing vegetables or buying them pre-frozen. Vegetables that freeze easily include broccoli, corn, carrots, green beans, cauliflower and peas.