Freezing Zucchini

You cant waste ALL of your hard work in the garden. If you have ever planted Zucchini, you will know what I mean when I say, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH ALL THIS! Last year I was handing it out left & right, and planted only 2 plants. This year something in my mind told me to plant 3, & looks like i was too dang busy with all the wedding planning to even hand them out. SO I had the Forth of July off of work, home alone & I thought I would punish myself. So here is punishment number 1....

How to Freeze Zucchini 

Pick the 20 zucchini that you have in your garden, wash them off & cut the ends off. Get out the old shredder. NO literally, I decided to use one of my antique shredders because it had more shredding space than my new one. GET TA SHREDDIN'! (no need to remove skin)

I shredded for a while then kept putting the shreds into my strainer, which was sitting in a bowl, until i filled up the strainer. I did this because it has sooooo much liquid, just wanted to get rid of some of it.

If you have zucchini the size of a grown adults leg, you will be better off removing the seed area as shown below.

Then I took my 1/2 dry measuring cup, and spooned 1/2 cup portions onto my cookie sheets, to FLASH FREEZE. Stuck that filled cookie sheet in the freezer for about an hour. (depends on your freezer) Just where  the portions are easy to handle & not falling apart.
Then you can stick them in your labeled freezer bags.

Reasons to flash freeze:

• Easy to grab the amount you need because its pre-measured
• You don't want to freeze a giant glob that would take a week to thaw out :)
• If you use a vacuum sealer, like myself, TRUST ME, there is WAAAAYYY too much liquid in this zucchini.. mine kept faulting out because the moisture tray was full.. I learned the hard way... :( SO FREEZE before vacuum sealing!

I plan to use my shredded zucchini this fall & winter in cakes & breads. It really adds moisture & you will never know its in the recipe!


Variations: You can also use the same technique, but chopping the zucchini, for stir fries & marinara sauces. I wouldn't worry about measuring, but do flash freeze so you don't have that big glob.