Early this year I sowed some spring and summer green podded deliciousness. As I'm sure you know peas and beans can be prolific and I'm keen to make the most of our crop, picking regularly and freezing anything we can't eat due the vegetable abundance summer brings.
METHOD
Freezing peas and beans is simple and only requires a few steps.
- Pick, Pod, String, Trim do what you would do to prep before cooking.
- The most important step that you must follow is to blanch you legumes (or any other veg that freezes well). A quick blanch ensures that you stop the enzymatic activity which is responsible for degrading vegetables. Missing out this step doesn't render vegetables inedible but will lead to discoloration and/or change in texture which might not be very appealing.
- Blanch your podded peas for 1 minutes, french beans for 1.30 minutes and runner beans for 2 minutes in boiling water.
- Plunge you legumes into a bowl of ice/very cold water to ensure the peas/beans don't continue cooking from the residual heat.
- Drain and pack your legumes in freezer bags, I like using small freezer bags this way I can harvest and freeze more frequently. It also makes sense as you can open one or more bags per meal as needed.
- Make sure you label you bag with the date of freezing and the use by date; Use frozen peas within 8 months and beans within a year. I also like noting the variety as It's interesting to compare how well they freeze.
