How To Freeze Vegetables So They Don't Stick Together

It never fails...you have frozen some excess produce to prevent it from going to waste.  You tossed it all into a big freezer bag and shoved it in the freezer.   Then, you need just a little bit of it for a recipe, only to find a huge icy clump!  *Commence dropping said bag on kitchen floor to break up clump and retrieve correct amount of veggie*

Happened to me ALL THE TIME!  Then my husband had this bright idea and we decided to try it and it worked like a charm.

Here's what we did  (I'm show you using the fresh green beans I prepared and froze today):

First, prepare your vegetable the way it will be eaten.  In this case it meant snapping off the ends and snapping into smaller pieces.

Rinsing in my sink.

The snapped pieces went straight into a pot.

Once that is done, I filled the pot with water and boiled them on the stove top for about 10 minutes.   Not long enough to get them soft, but just long enough to begin the cooking process, so it doesn't take quite as long when you prepare them to eat.   This is what is done to the ones you buy frozen at the store.

Once they have cooked a bit (but not fully), drain them, and lay them out in a single layer on a baking sheet, and put them straight into the freezer.   In the vegetable factories, the machines pay them out flat on a conveyor belt, and send them through a section that flash freezer them in this manner.

Once they are frozen, simply toss them all into a freezer bag.  Now you can easily grab as many or as few or your vegetable as you need.  Make sure you put them back into the freezer right away before they begin to melt, or they will refreeze together and get stuck.