Yes, you can freeze celery.
Different from other vegetables, celery has always been used as a condiment by us because of its special and strong smell. No one will eat celery as a main course, which leads to only a small amount of celery consumption per meal, but we usually buy a large bundle of celery at once, it’s always over-purchase.
So, what about celery that can’t be finished? You can’t just throw it away for nothing.
In this article, I will show you how to freeze celery.
Pros and Cons of Freezing Celery
The first thing you need to know is that celery freezing keeps it fresh very well, even if you take it out again after a few months. But frozen celery is a little different from fresh celery after all.
Because of the water content in the celery cells, when freezing, the water inside the cells gradually turns into ice and increases in size, which in turn breaks the cell walls of the celery, so we will find that after thawing the frozen celery it becomes soft and a bit mushy, which is normal, not spoiled.
Since thawed celery is softened and not as hard as when you first purchased it, you can no longer use it well within some stir-fries or salads. If you use it in soups, then this would be a good choice.
How Long Can Celery be Frozen?
Well, we already know that celery can indeed be frozen. And you are only going to use the thawed celery to flavor the soup, so it’s perfect.
It was mentioned above that frozen celery can stay fresh for several months, so how many months is that?
This depends on the situation, celery freezing has to go through some processing. If you wrap the celery directly in a plastic bag and still put it in the refrigerator, then it will stay fresh for up to two months. If you freeze the celery as I will talk about below, it will stay fresh for up to 12 months or more.
Steps for Freezing Celery
1. Wash the celery and remove the mud and dirt from the surface of the celery. Cut off any bad or rotten branches and leaves. You need to dry the celery before freezing it. Since the base of celery accumulates and holds a lot of dirt, you will need to separate all the stems of a bunch of celery to clean it thoroughly. If you find this difficult to clean, then you can simply cut the base off.
2. Tearing off all the rough shreds of celery.
3. Cut off hard or inedible parts.
4. Dice the celery.
5. Put the chopped celery in a baking dish and let them sort each other out, put them in the refrigerator, and freeze.
6. Remove the celery from the baking dish and repackage it in a sealable bag. Squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible and label the outside of the bag with the date. If it doesn’t turn white, you’ll want to use it up in two months. If it turns white, then it can be used up in 12 months.
How to Use Thawed Celery?
Remove the celery from the bag and use it directly when cooking. Although the texture of the celery will soften, the flavor will not change, making it especially good for use in soups.
Well, that’s all about the experience of freezing celery, if you have other questions, welcome to leave me a comment.