Enjoy Fresh Fruit All Year Long
How To Preserve Strawberries
As strawberry season comes to a close, you may be wondering how to continue enjoying this delicious fruit! Many fruits and vegetables can be preserved so that you can eat fresh produce year-round. In this article, we are going to give instructions how to preserve strawberries in a couple different ways. Keep in mind that you can use your SNAP dollars at the local farmer’s market or grocery store to pick up some of the last strawberries of the season! By preserving your in-season produce, you can save food for winter months when you may need to spend your money on holiday gifts.
Jars and Equipment:
In this blog, we are going to give instructions how to preserve strawberries in different ways, depending on your taste. Let’s start with what kind of containers you need to have on hand for preserving this fruit. Choose a rigid plastic container, a glass jar intended for freezing, or canning jars for storing your fruit. Some glass jars are not meant for freezing and may break in the freezer. Flexible freezer bags are a good option as well.
Freezing
Freezing strawberries is a great way to continue to enjoy this tasty fruit for months after the season has ended. Select fully ripe strawberries that are firm to freeze them. Depending on how you intend to use them after freezing, you can choose to slice, crush, or leave whole in the freezer. Most fruit will maintain their taste and shape for 8 to 12 months in the freezer.
Jams and Jellies
Making jam and jelly is a tradition a lot of families in North Carolina pass down through the generations. This is a great tradition to start to get everyone in the family involved in learning how to prepare food. Some jam recipes call for adding an ingredient called “pectin” to expedite the cooking process, but the following recipe does not contain this extra ingredient. To make strawberry jam, check out this recipe below!
Strawberry Jam
Grocery List:
- Strawberries
- Sugar
Directions:
- Crush 4 cups of strawberries and pour crushed fruit into a large saucepan.
- Add 4 cups of sugar to the crushed fruit and bring to a boil while stirring constantly.
- When the mixture thickens, pour a small amount on a cold plate and put it in the freezer for a few minutes.
- If the mixture gels, the jam is ready to be placed in a jar or a freezer storage container/bag.
Information for this blog was collected from the following websites:
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