It’s that time of year! The time of year where zucchini growers can be found on every street corner begging for people to take their over-sized vegetables. Most people will happily take one or two, but then there are SO many left. Zucchini plants can produce like gangbusters, or just put out a few fruit- you never know, and that inconsistency is why zucchini growers tend to plant a few too many in the spring.
For fresh eating, most people prefer the smaller sized zucchini (or summer squash), as you don’t have to worry about the seeds getting in the way. But honestly, the larger zucchini are just as delicious if you take the time to scoop out the seeds and inner membranes. For most people, the question of preserving them for another time usually leads to making quick breads and freezing those, or the oddly textured zucchini pickle. In the past, I’ve shredded zucchini to use later in quick breads, but I’ve always wondered about freezing zucchini in chunks. You can buy it in the freezer section at the grocery store, and I find the quality very good, so why can’t I do it at home?
The answer is that you can, and it’s really easy.
Start with your zucchini or summer squash. If you have small ones, cut them up into 1-inch coins. If your zucchini are larger, as mine are, cut them open and scrape out the seeds and fibers with a spoon. Cut the zucchini into uniform pieces to they will cook uniformly.
While you get the zucchini cut up, you can get a pot on the stove with water and bring it to a gentle boil. I pretty much cut up one zucchini at a time. Once your water is boiling, the whole process is very fast.
Once you have about 4 or 5 cups of cubed squash ready, drop it in the boiling water and set the timer for just 3 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, you can give the zucchini a toss once or twice. This 3 minutes goes by very quickly, giving you just enough time to get a bowl filled with ice water. When the 3 minutes are up, remove the zucchini from the boiling water with a slotted spoon, and toss into ice water to stop the cooking.
Once cooled, spread out the zucchini chunks on several layers of paper towel, or use kitchen towels as I do. You can pat them dry if you like, but I found that if I just spread them out on a few towels with the ceiling fan going over them, they dried just fine on their own.
Now, at this point, I was originally going to spread out my zucchini on baking sheets sprayed with cooking spray and freeze them individually. Then I would put them in a gallon freezer bag once frozen, so I could remove the precise amounts of zucchini I wanted to use at the time. Alas, once I had my sheet pans ready, I realized I was out of gallon bags, so instead, I just piled the blanched cubes into quart freezer bags this time.
Make sure you label your bags with a sharpie! I put the contents on the bag, along with the month and the year for the date. You would think you would remember what these were come February, but you’d be surprised how many times one glances past a bag of something mysterious in the freezer…
It took longer to bring the water to a boil than anything else. In about 10 minutes time I had 4 quarts of zucchini ready for the freezer. This zucchini is ready to be added to soups or stews, or to spread out on a baking sheet and roast with salt, pepper and olive oil. I’m looking forward to letting more zucchini grow to epic proportions!