Beet greens, mustard greens, chards, cresses, and rapini – all those leafy greens that are maybe too tough or too peppery for salads but with which you never know what to do. You don’t want to just throw them out and you’re sick of steaming or blanching and then cooking them with olive oil, lemon, and garlic. Boring, right? You’re all spent on saag and gomen. So what do you do?
But, there’s so much of it! It’ll take up the whole freezer, you say. No, it won’t! Blanch the greens and they shrink up, saving both fridge and freezer space. You can even purée them, press the liquid out of them, and freeze them in ice cube trays. Then pop them into freezer bags to resuscitate cube by cube over the course of the next six months as needed. Surely somewhere in that period of time you’ll be craving something green and squishy, and it’s a whole lot less expensive than buying bags of frozen, pesticide-heavy or organic spinach.
How to Freeze Leafy Greens
Ingredients and Equipment:
As many greens as you have
1 large pot (with or without a steamer basket)
A colander (or pasta strainer)
A blender or food processor or a large knife
An ice cube tray or just a freezer-proof container
A large freezer bag (or just the freezer-proof container above)
Directions: Add all greens (in batches, as necessary) to a large pot of boiling water. Stir. Wait for the water to come back to a boil, and then count to 30. Remove greens from water and rinse under cold water in a colander. (Or steam the greens for about 3 minutes, until softened. Hardier greens take more time – maybe up to 12 minutes for collard greens! If they’re not fully softened, though, that’s fine! When you defrost them you will probably end up cooking them more anyway, so too little cooking now is better than too much.)
Press the excess water out of the drained greens and then either chop them by hand or chop roughly and then blend them in a blender or food processor. Press out excess water again if necessary and either squeeze into falafel or meatball-sized balls and place in a freezer-safe container (if you press all the greens together you’ll have to defrost them all at once! That’s pounds and pounds of greens – remember how many greens you started with!). Or press them into ice cube trays. If you used the trays, after one night transfer the cubes to a freezer-proof container or bag. (You can also do this for homemade pesto and use up that basil you have sitting around. Parsley and cilantro also make great basil substitutes for pesto.
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