Freezing Carrots for Soup, Roasts and Other Dishes

I mentioned some blessings of carrots coming my way and I need them to use for turkey soup for the wedding. I didn't want them to freeze in my garage and didn't want them to go bad and they needed to be peeled and cut for the weeding anyway so yesterday while we masked 120 windows on 4 doors for painting, I had my three youngest princesses busy at work peeling this case of carrots so that I could get them ready for the soup.

Once the box was peeled, I had them soak them in large pressure cookers in cold water to keep them from browning until I had time to get to processing them.

Getting ready, you need; peelers, large soaking pots, smaller pot with boiling water, sharp knife, cutting board, colander, Ziploc bags and a bowl for cooling.

Peel the carrots. Rinse them and place them in the cold water to keep them from drying and browning. Take them out of the water and chop them into whatever size you need for processing. If you want to use them for soups, I chop them about 1/4 to 1/2 in thick and if the carrot is larger around or towards the top where it is thicker, I cut it in half. If I am using them for roasting or a home style soup, I cut them into 1/2 to 1 inch thick or long. If you are going to glaze them and serve them as side dish, cut them into whatever size you like.

Once they are cut. Place them in the center of a square piece or two of cheese cloth. pick up the cloth by the opposite corners bringing all the corners into the center and then twist the cheesecloth sealing the veggies inside. Dip the cheesecloth into the boiling water for about 15 seconds holding the ends of the cheesecloth. Be careful not to burn yourself. You can use a hot pad mitt if you are worried about getting burned. Pull the cheesecloth out of the water and let it drip for a few seconds and then place it into a colander and allow to drain in the sink while you chop the next batch of carrots or other vegetables.

Once I have the next batch cut and ready to blanch, (the term for dipping vegetables in hot water so that the cells burst keeping which helps them keep their color for drying or freezing) I take the veggies out of the cheesecloth and pour them into a bowl to cool before placing them in freezer bags. They say it isn't good to put hot items in plastic as it releases toxins so I allow them to cool in a bowl for a few minutes before pouring them into the freezer bags.

I then blanch the next batch and now have one in the cooling bowl, one in the colander draining and start cutting the next batch. Once that next batch is ready to blanch, I place the cooled carrots into a Ziploc freezer bag, take the draining one and place it in the cooling bowl, blanch the next batch and then let it drain while I cut the next batch.

I have tried using a food processor but they cut the carrots too thin and I don't like how they come out as the cook while blanching. If they made a thicker cutting blade, I would be thrilled. I haven't ever seen one so that won't work so I do all the cutting by hand when it comes to carrots.

If you want to glaze the carrots, or use some type of sweetener for side carrots, you could place some sugar or other sweetener in the bag at this point before freezing them. Just make sure you label them as such so they aren't used for something else.

I usually use about a quart sized bag when doing roasting carrots as I like larger roasts and company for dinners. If you are a smaller family make them sandwich bags instead.

Last night I did almost 4 gallons of carrots. I did three gallons together in gallon sized bags for the turkey soup and then did sandwich bags for the other soups and stir-fry dinners I make.

I worked on carrots for about 4 hours to get that many done. I saw in the box of carrots I got the largest carrot I have ever seen in my life. It is shown in the pan above but you can't tell size due to the fact that the pan is a huge pressure cooker. I placed the peeled carrot on the cutting board next to my large cutting knife and it made the knife and the board look normals size so I put some bananas next to it and took pictures but it made the banana's look regulars so I put a butter knife next to them so you could see how large the carrot really is. I probably should have taken a photo of someone holding it so you could really see the size. The carrots chopped on the cutting board above are those two carrots chopped. All that came from two carrots.

Bag the carrots and label the freezer bags and then freeze. If for some reason you need the carrots individually frozen (so you can choose how many you need out of one bag), you can freeze them flat on cookie sheets and once they are frozen, you can then dump them into freezer bags at that point. That will allow you to use just a few out of the bag.

I warn you now that your hands will turn orange and I wish I had taken a photo of them this morning to show how they looked. It looked like a spray tan on my hands. If you want to wear gloves to keep your hands from drying and staining, it would be good but make sure you don't use latex as if you served them to someone who had a latex allergy later, it could pose a problem. They serve plastic food gloves at most stores, even dollar stores have food grade gloves.

I hope all this work makes Princess number one's big day memorable for her. We each should have such a day!