The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Freezing Raspberries

13.3 years ago cheap, freezing, raspberries

Last weekend my daughters and I went to a berry farm in my home town to pick some raspberries.  Of course a few were eaten while picking but we left with 5 lbs. of berries by the time we left.  After making 6 pints of raspberry jam and eating a few cups at snacks we still had some extra left, unfortunately ripe berries will go bad and begin to mold quickly…scary how the berries I buy in the store that traveled hundreds of miles do not have this problem…the also do not taste anywhere near as delicious either.

Long story short…I ended up with some extra berries I know would go to waste if I didn’t do something with them quickly so I decided to freeze them.

1. Wash and Dry.  Give the raspberries a quick wash and let the water drain for the strainer for a couple minutes to allow the water to drain off.

2. Pour berries into a container.  I chose a cake pan because it was the right size to fit all my berries.  Do your best to spread the berries out into as single layer but if a few are touching that is not a problem (will explain later)

3. Freeze berries.  Allow 6-8 hours for berries to completely freeze.  As you can see in the picture below I was lacking freezer space so opted to use the ice tray for this short freeze (remembering to turn off the ice maker to avoid an incident)

4. Separate and store the berries.  If you were not careful like me and the berries seem to be frozen in a single blob, never fear.  Simply take the cake pan and move inside a gallon Ziploc container and flip upside down and smack the back of the cake pan.  Now you should have a circle of frozen berries.  Remove the pan and use your hands (outside the bag) to break apart the berries.  With just a few seconds of effort you should have nearly no big chunks of raspberries.  Finish off with the poor mans vacuum sealer (stick a straw into the Ziploc bag and suck and you should have some berries good for at least 6 months.