How to freeze carrots

Want to learn how to freeze carrots? A useful and nutritious vegetable, the humble carrot is good both for cooking with and for snacking. The trouble is that most of us buy too many carrots (especially right now) to use them up before they've started wilting and losing their crisp texture and sweet flavour. Here's how to freeze them without losing their quality.

Find out how to cook roasted carrots – a great way to serve this tasty veg. Find more useful food tips at our hub page.  

How to freeze carrots

For best results, we recommend blanching carrots before freezing them, as that's what helps preserve their original flavour and texture. You can, of course, simply freeze carrots as they are, but they're likely not to taste as good and have a slightly weird texture when you defrost them.

So, to blanch and freeze your carrots:

1. Wash them thoroughly and trim off their stems. No need to peel. You can now either slice your carrots, chop them up if they're large, or just leave them whole.

2. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and add the carrots. Bring the water back to the boil and leave the carrots in for three minutes of they're chopped up, or five minutes if they're whole. 

3. Drain. Prepare a bowl of ice water and submerge the carrots in it until they completely cool down. 

4. Pat dry with a paper towel and place the carrots in a freezer bag or airtight container. They'll keep in the freezer for as long as 12 months. 

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