The local market is having a sale on asparagus, which is usually expensive. We want to stock up and freeze them, but due our lack of experience with it because of the price, but we’re not sure if you can just freeze them. Most of the article online recommend blanching them. However, we cook our asparagus in the oven with olive oil, so blanching now might not work. So, any help would be greatly appreciate.
ALDI has bags of frozen asparagus. But they may use some special freezing technique.
Part of the appeal of asparagus is it’s texture which is crunchy and delicate. I suspect conventional slow freezing (vs industrial flash freezing) in a home fridge would allow ice crystals to propagate and turn it into mush upon thawing and cooking.
Yep, frozen then thawed asparagus has the soggy texture and limpness of canned asparagus.
I wish I had thought of buying extra. I could have marinated them and jar them up.
Yep, I blanched, shocked and froze some and still ended up with mush. Good for cream of asparagus soup.
StG
And the downside to this is…?
[I just happen to love homemade cream of asparagus soup, or cream of many different veggies soups. You should try scallops poached gently in cream of asparagus soup, NOM!]
This is what I do, only I don’t thaw them before use; I put them still-frozen into whatever dish when it’s hot (usually rice as it’s boiling). I don’t get mush.