Easy Methods for Freezing Swiss Chard

When it comes to dining, there are several methods for preserving meals that you wish to consume later in the day or week. Certain foods may be stored on the counter or in the pantry without refrigeration, while others must be refrigerated to remain in good condition.

If you want to consume the food later, you should frequently consider freezing it to stop the decomposition process completely.

Yet, determining which sorts of food must be preserved in which way is seldom as simple as it seems. Certain goods that you may believe need refrigeration should not be refrigerated, while others do not fare well in the freezer. As an example, consider potatoes.

Since potatoes are a vegetable, you would believe they should be stored in the fridge like other vegetables, but it is typically advised that you only store potatoes in the fridge when they are part of a cuisine.

With so many various methods to store and preserve food, deciding what to do with your food may be difficult. Certain foods are quite difficult to determine how to keep them and what you would have to do if you wanted to ensure optimal storage.

The swiss chard is an excellent illustration of this.

What Is Swiss Chard?

Swiss chard is not a well-known name in the United States; rather, this leafy green is significantly more widespread in the Mediterranean area where it originated.

Naturally, it is used in many Mediterranean meals, so if you appreciate that style of cuisine, you may find yourself buying a lot of this plant.

This would then cause you to want to make sure that you maintain it correctly so that you don’t have to waste time and money trying to get it again if it goes bad.

Swiss chard is quite similar to spinach, but not identical. In fact, swiss chard is known as spinach in South Africa.

The good thing about swiss chard is that, although it may not be as common in other areas of the globe, it is really rather simple to cultivate.

If you want to produce swiss chard and utilize it from your own garden, it is all too easy to wind up with more leafy greens than you know what to do with, making it all the more important to understand how to properly freeze them when you know they won’t keep long in the fridge.

Sadly, swiss chard has a terrible reputation for spoiling quickly, even when purchased underripe to give it a little more time.

Normally, while looking for this leafy green, check for sturdy stalks and deep green leaves to ensure that you aren’t buying swiss chard that was collected when it was too young.

When stored in the refrigerator, swiss chard can last anywhere from a few days to a week before it starts to wilt. When determining how long it will stay in your fridge, remember that younger, smaller leaves wilt quicker than full-grown ones.

Given that swiss chard does not keep well in the fridge and will wilt within a day if left out on the counter, the only option to keep it for an extended period of time is to place it in the freezer.

This may be different for you since you may not know how to securely freeze leafy greens without destroying them. Blanch the swiss chard before freezing it.

Freezing Your Swiss Chard

When you intend to blanch swiss chard, freezing it is an easy and uncomplicated method. If you’ve never blanched veggies before freezing them before, you may feel a little out of your element, but rest assured that it’s a simple operation that will be worth it when you can preserve your swiss chard in fine condition for up to a year at a time.

You won’t need nearly as many ingredients to freeze and prepare swiss chard. Of course, you’ll need a freezer-safe and airtight bag to store the swiss chard in, as well as many bags if you’re sectioning it off into portion sizes.

You will need to prepare a kettle of water big enough to contain the stalks in, as well as a basin of ice comparable in size to the swiss chard.

The first step is to prepare the swiss chard for cooking, just as you would any other vegetable. You should inspect it quickly for symptoms of wilt or disease, and then thoroughly wash it to ensure that there is no dirt on it.

You may also wish to separate the stalks of the swiss chard from the leaves to make things simpler for yourself while cooking it, but this is entirely optional.

Stalks take longer to cook than leaves, and some recipes call for only the leaves or only the stalks and not the other parts of the swiss chard, so it is often recommended to split them up, but if you are only concerned with freezing and storage, you won’t want to worry about it all that much and can start preparing a pot of water.

Fill a saucepan with boiling water that is at least big enough to accommodate the stalks. From here, you’ll want to put the pot of water on the burner and bring it to a boil.

You may start prepping your second pot while you wait for the first to boil. You’re going to fill the pot with a good quantity of ice this time. If your kitchen is really hot, you may want to wait until the chard has finished cooking before making the ice.

In terms of cooking the swiss chard, after the water has reached a boil, put the swiss chard in the water and allow it to cook for a few minutes. To avoid overcooking the chard, merely heat it for two minutes for the stalks and one minute for the leaves.

When this time has gone, take up the swiss chard and place it immediately on the ice to finish the blanching process. Let it to sit on the ice for a few minutes to verify that the cooking process has fully stopped and that you are ready to begin the last stages of prepping the swiss chard for freezing.

After you are satisfied that the cooking process has come to an end, drain the swiss chard well, brushing off any and all extra water. You may now start bagging the swiss chard for freezing.

You should separate the leaves and stems and keep them in separate containers or bags. You may use airtight freezer bags or an airtight freezer safe container; the details are less important than ensuring that the storage technique is both freezer safe and airtight.

Just store the frozen swiss chard bags in the freezer. Depending on the variety, you should anticipate the swiss chard to survive anywhere from six months to a year before going bad and being freezer burnt.

Always remember to label the container you’re placing in the freezer with a date so you know how long it’s been.

What Is Blanching?

Blanching helps to maintain the quality of different vegetables and fruits before storing them in the freezer for extended periods of time. Blanching correctly guarantees that the meal retains its flavour, texture, and look far better than it would otherwise.

Blanching will effectively prepare the food such that it functions similarly to leftovers in the freezer, being less susceptible to the harsh environment while remaining functionally fresh and new food.

By briefly boiling the item in question, you may just barely begin to beginning the cooking process.

The reason you place the meal on ice afterward is because the cooking process for vegetables and fruits does not end when you remove them from the heat. Instead, the warm water within the fruit or vegetable will continue to cook it from the inside out, resulting in an undesired amount of cooking when freezing anything to keep a fresh flavour.

Putting it on ice helps to force that cooking process to a halt, allowing you to securely freeze your favorite veggies.