How To Freeze Squash

I am going to show you how to freeze a butter nut squash. Now, butternut squashes are gorgeous. You can have them roasted, in soups, lightly steamed, a really tasty vegetable, bursting with vitamins, iron, zinc, packed with beta keratin.

They are a bit tricky to handle, so I find that the best way is to simply cut them into ferts and then they are easy to peel as you can actually stand them on your chopping board. So that's what we are going to start off with now. So the best way forward is to get your butter nut squash and cut it into three pieces.

Because then you can put it on top of your chopping board and hold it quite steady. You might like to peel it with a peeler or you may find it easier to try with a very sharp knife. So we are just going to peel all pieces of our butternut squash now.

And just peel it and be very careful as this is a bit of tricky job but really is worthwhile. So you can chop the pieces into good chunks. Chunk size or you can chop them slightly smaller as well and this is good if you are going to use the butternut squash after you have frozen it for a soup or even a puree because even babies and small kids absolutely love butternut squash.

Now you can try and freeze your butternut squash without blanching however we feel that it is a very good idea to cook just for about 5 minutes also steam or boil. Now with this part of the squash, the seeds do come out very easily. You can just scoop around and then pop them out.

They come out just so easily. Easily get all of the seeds out and again cut this into small pieces. It doesn't take long to steam or to lightly boil.

Okay, that's plenty enough. Now what we are going to do is now pop it into a pan of boiling water for just five minutes. Well, our butternut squash has been blanching now for just 5 minutes.

You can cook it for slightly longer if you need to, if you like to. I think that really is enough. As I said you can steam butternut squashes as well before freezing it.

And what we need to do now is pop it into some ice water. You can see this has really brought out the color of the butternut squash. You can just run this under cold water.

But I do feel that it works better to get it cold very quickly and in ice water. We are just going to leave the butternut squash in the ice water now for 5 minutes just so it cools very quickly. The butternut squash has been cooling now for about 5 minutes so we are going to take it very carefully out of the iced water.

I find using a big ladling spoon is ideal and just make sure you drip the water out. I think it does help to use one measuring jug and pop the bag in it. Just makes the thing a lot more sturdy.

Pick out bits of ice. Once frozen, it will last for really many many months so it is a really handy thing. Although the butternut squashes and other squashes they do last a long time.

You can just leave them on your side, side of your kitchen as they will last for many months any way. Here we go. Lovely bag, gorgeous color, really really tasty vegetable, very versatile.

Make sure you get all of the air out of the bag, roll it up very nicely, might have a bit more air in there and pop in the freezer. That is ready now to be steamed later or to be baked in the oven with olive oil or to be popped into a really nice soup. Now we are going to get it into the freezer.

So that is how you can freeze butternut squash.