Every year, at some point, we become overrun with vegetables from our garden. We can only eat so many at a time! We have begun to get to that point now with our sugar snap peas. So, when we get to this point, I begin to freeze some of the peas so that we have them to enjoy later on.
Snap peas are actually fairly simple to freeze. It takes a few steps and a little work, but it is not difficult to do.
The first thing I did was pick the peas, cut the ends off, and rinsed them in cold water.
I then brought a pot of water to a boil. While the water was coming to a boil, I filled a bowl with ice water. For larger batches of vegetables, I sometimes just fill the kitchen sink with ice water, but for this amount of peas, a bowl works fine.
Once the water was boiling, I grabbed a big handful of snap peas and put them in the water. If the water continues to boil, I set the stove timer for 2 minutes. If the water stops boiling when I put the peas in, I wait until the water begins to boil again to set the timer. I try to put smaller amounts of peas in at a time so that the water boils continuously. I love the bright color green the peas turn while they are in the boiling water!
At the end of the two minutes, I scooped the peas out of the water using a metal strainer basket with a handle and put them right into the ice water. The peas should remain in the ice water for at least two minutes.
While the first batch of peas were sitting in the ice bath, I brought the water on the stove back up to a boil (if it wasn’t already). I put another large handful of peas in, and began the cycle all over again.
Once the first batch of peas have been in the ice water for a few minutes or so and the next bunch of peas were boiling, I took the peas out of the ice bath and laid them in a single layer on a towel to dry.
When the second batch of peas had boiled for two minutes, I took them out and put them in the ice bath. And so the cycle continues!
If at any point the ice bath begins to get a little warmer than I would like, I just add more ice. (That is an easy fix!)
Once all of the peas have had time to air dry, I placed them on a baking sheet in a single layer (or as close to a single layer as I can get them), and then took it to the freezer. This gives each pod the opportunity to freeze individually, as opposed to just putting them all in a bag and they freeze in a giant, unmanageable clump. Yes, I have done that!
I left the peas in the freezer for about 5 hours, giving them enough time to freeze.
Once the peas were frozen individually, I used a spatula to scoop the peas into a freezer Ziploc bag. I did my best to squeeze as much air out of the bags as possible. I labeled them with the contents and the date, and then placed them back in the freezer. Since one bag is only half filled, I will add to it when I freeze my next batch of peas.
That’s it! That’s all there is to it! It takes a little bit of time, but it is really quite simple to do! And now, we can enjoy sugar snap peas all year long!
