Fruit Hoarding: A How To

Part 1:

Freezing Fruit the Strawberry Edition

Winter on the East coast can be a little tough, but having a little fruit hoard of your own will give you the opportunity to break up that January banana monotony with some bright bursts of summer. So! Let’s get into it. One berry at a time.

 Strawberries grow pretty close to the ground- which means there tends to be dirt and straw clinging to them. I like to wash mine before I store them, that way they are ready to use right out of the freezer. 

Fill a bowl with cold water. Choose a bowl with extra room so that the strawberries have space to float at the top, allowing for any dirt to sink to the bottom. Instead of dumping the fruit into a strainer, scoop them straight out of the water so that any of the unwanted stuff stays behind. As you pull the berries from the water, remove the stems. I prefer to de-stem strawberries with my fingers (see video below). I find that this method is faster and produces less waste.  After your strawberries are washed and de-stemmed, lay them out on a kitchen towel. If you don’t have a cloth towel that you mind getting berry stained, you can use layers of paper towels.

From here you have a couple of choices. You can put the strawberries straight into a freezer bag (definitely recommend labeling the bag before you fill it), or you can lay them out on a parchment lined sheet tray and freeze them completely before you bag them. The latter will provide you with strawberries that are individually frozen (instead of one big strawberry iceburg!). Hoarding strawberries does require a bit of effort, but I guarantee that when you’re having local strawberries on your yogurt in the middle of  February- you’ll feel like it was well worth your time. Enjoy <3.