Freezing blueberries

[Vishenka69]

What the best way to freeze blueberries? There are tons of them right now and pretty cheap, so I'd like to save for later. Any other freezable fruit out there?

Re: Freezing blueberries

Rinse them and let them dry then spread out on a cookie sheet and freeze them. Once they are frozen or mostly frozen, put them in a freezer bag. If you freeze them individually like this, you aren't stuck with a big frozen chunks of berries. You can do the same with any berries.

Re: Freezing blueberries

Yes -- the wax paper is a good idea! It keeps them from freezing to the cookie sheet.

Re: Freezing blueberries

I just did the cookie sheet method with a load of strawberries, cut them up first. I love having frozen berries on hand for smoothies.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Freezing blueberries

Thanks. Now I'll be taking suggestion as to what to do with all the stuff in my freezer while I'm freezing strawberries and blueberries. How long does it usually take? I could potentially move all the meat and ice cream down to the fridge overnight.

Re: Freezing blueberries

We froze a bunch of strawberries earlier this spring. We use them for smoothies, too. They get used up all too fast that way.

I also use the blueberries in pancakes and muffins, or even just a granola, berries & cream mix for a different breakfast.

[Auspicious]

Re: Freezing blueberries

Thanks. Now I'll be taking suggestion as to what to do with all the stuff in my freezer while I'm freezing strawberries and blueberries. How long does it usually take? I could potentially move all the meat and ice cream down to the fridge overnight.

If your freezer can't handle the baking sheets, I usually just put stuff in a ziplock bag (big or little), seal it, lay the bag flat, and spread the stuff out into a single layer within the bag, and then transfer the bag laying it flat-ish in the freezer, stacking up several bags if you need to. The stuff usually ends up touching a little bit, but as long as it's in a single layer I can usually break it apart with my hands before taking it out of the bag.

The cookie sheet method would definitely waste fewer bags, though!

Re: Freezing blueberries

When all the kids were home we froze about 40-50 pounds a year the super lazy way. Go to the Upick farm the day after a rain storm then they were clean enough.
Set up assembly line on counter with big bowl of berries and quart size ziplocs and a straw. berries in, lay flat on counter so they will stack well in freezer, zip up except for straw, suck out air and seal. lay flat in freezer.

Always worked well and they were gone by March.

Yumm - must go berry picking after next rain.

Re: Freezing blueberries

I think they would freeze in an hour or so? You just want them to firm up. I did it the way Julie suggested when we had a side by side freezer and a cookie sheet didn't fit in there.