Save Your Peaches!

September 24, 2013 by Alia 72 Comments

The peaches have been wonderful this year.  They’re sweet, succulent and overall, plain delicious!  They’re like candy.

Even better, my nine month old son is in love with them.  He loves peaches.  And I love ANY food that he loves.  I’ve learned that skill over the past few months!

With this in mind, I decided it was time to freeze some peaches.  We don’t have a ton of room in our freezer, so I couldn’t freeze a flat of them or anything like that.  But, there is certainly enough room for a few.

Ripe Peaches

Freezing Peaches

Freezing peaches is not quite as simple as slicing them and sticking them into a bag.  I’ve tried that and I found out that they just stick together in a clump or hard-to-use peach mass.

Fortunately, freezing peaches is not difficult.  It takes one or two steps and you’ll have delicious fresh frozen peaches for the long peach-less months ahead.

Blanch Your Peaches

First, you need to blanch your peaches.  Boil a pot of water and put your washed peaches into the boiling pot of water. I left mine in for about 90 seconds.

Blanching the Peaches

Cool Your Peaches

To cool them quickly, put them into an ice bath.  Use tongs to transfer the peaches from boiling water to the ice bath.

Peaches in the Ice Bath

Peel the Peaches

At this point, your peaches should be cool enough to handle and you can slip the skins off of them.  It’s really that simple.

Blanched and Skinned Peaches

Slice and Tray-Freeze

Slice up your peaches and lay them on a tray.  I lined my tray with parchment paper, but this is not necessary.  You can put your peach slices directly on a pan if that works for you.  Freeze the peaches.  This should take about 3 hours.  I left mine in overnight.

Sliced Peaches, Ready for the Freezer

Bag Your Peaches

Pack your frozen peach slices into plastic bags.  Make sure you label them bags!  Hide them in your freezer in a place where you’ll find them with glee in the middle of winter!

Fresh Frozen Peach Slices