How To Freeze Peaches
Every day for the past few weeks, as I took my lunchtime walk, I would walk past a lady selling peaches at a little roadside stand. I stopped and talked to her, learned that she owned the farm where they came from, checked the prices, and finally, one day remembered to bring some money on my walk. I was ready to buy some peaches. The only problem was that my place of employment is about 1/2 mile from the peach stand, which would seriously limit the amount of peaches I could buy. At least it should have. After I saw the huge half bushel basket of beautiful peaches, and heard that this was the last day she was going to be there, well….I just had to buy it. Yes, 1/2 bushel of peaches (approximately 25 lbs). Which I carried in 5 separate plastic bags 1/2 mile back to work. In 80 degree weather. My shoulders have literally been sore for days thanks to those peaches! But I made it! And it was worth it. Just look at all those peaches!
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Mike’s response was something along the lines of “Why in the world did you buy so many peaches??” I’m guessing he’ll have a different attitude when he gets peach smoothies in the middle of winter. |
My main goal for the peaches was to freeze them. We have smoothies every morning before work, and the thought of having fresh sweet summer peaches to put in our smoothies during the long winter months just makes me smile. So I researched, and googled, and asked around, and came up with a pretty good freezing method. I’ve had a few people ask me how I did it, so I figured I’d include some pictures, along with the general method I used in case anyone has been waiting for a peach freezing tutorial. It’s a little time consuming (ok, that was an understatement…towards the end of those 25 lbs I was pretty much a steady strem of complaints), but I think it will be totally worth it when I open up that bag of summer peaches in the middle of January!
I put captions with the pictures, and included full instructions at the bottom of the post. Let me know if you try it. Or if you freeze peaches another way, I’d love to hear about it! (p.s. sorry for the low quality pictures…my hands were seriously covered in peach goo, and it was not ideal for picture taking).
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Boil the peaches for 20-40 seconds to loosen their skins and make them easier to peel. |
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Place the peaches in ice water to stop the cooking process. |
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Peel off the skins, discard the pits, and cut the peaches into slices |
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Spoon the peaches into ziploc bags and cover with a light syrup. |
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Freeze the peaches flat on cookie sheets. Once they’re frozen, you can stack them easily in the freezer. |
How To Freeze Fresh Peaches
adapted from MLive
Start with peaches that are at the peak of ripeness, perfect for eating fresh. Create a light syrup by combining 7 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar. Heat over medium heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Let cool while you prepare the peaches. Alternately you could use white grape juice, apple juice, orange juice or peach juice instead of the light syrup.
Wash the peaches in cool water. Bring a pot of water to boil. Have a bowl of water with ice cubes beside the peaches. Put the peaches in boiling water for 20 to 40 seconds. Remove the peaches with a slotted spoon and immediately place them in ice water to stop the cooking process.
Using a small knife, slit the peach skins at the end and peel them off. Slice the peaches and discard the pits. Place sliced peaches in a large bowl.
After you have about 5 cups of peaches, pour 1/4 cup of lemon juice over the peaches or sprinkle 3 teaspoons of Fruit Fresh over them. Gently stir them with a wooden spoon so that all the fruit surfaces are covered.
Ladle peaches into freezer bags in amounts desired (I did about 2 cups of peaches per bag for smoothies). Pour enough syrup or juice over the fruit in the bag to completely cover it. Seal the bag, pushing out as much air as possible.
Lay the bags flat so that all fruit is covered by the liquid. Freeze flat on a cookie sheet. Once they’re frozen, you can stack them in the freezer.Thaw peaches by putting them out on the counter for a couple of hours or in the refrigerator overnight. Use immediately.
Of course I didn’t freeze all the peaches…. recipe coming soon!
Welcome! I'm Megan and it's my hope that here you'll find food that has been made with love and recipes that are shared with joy. Thanks for stopping by! 
This is a great tutorial! I just wish I could find enough good peaches to freeze.
Great tip on freezing, thanks for sharing!
Hi Megan, stumble upon your blog and I'm glad I did. You have a lovely site here. Wow, look at all the wonderful peaches. OMG! peaches are really expensive over here (Malaysia)! Hey, you must need a really big freezer to store all the peaches, berries, pesto and lots of other goodies as some of the bloggers do! Have a nice day!
Thanks for the tip! I'll have to remember that for other fruits.
Those peaches look lovely- unfortunately our climate in the UK means we never have peaches that look that good!
I am jealous of all of those peaches!! Great post!
great tutorial—I need to stock up and try this!
Really informative post, Megan. Thanks!
Excellent! I might just do that as they are so inexpensive now! Thanks!
Peaches are my favorite part of summer. Actually, nectarines are since they have no fuzz – but peaches have a longer season. Anyway, we bought a bushel of peaches to can one summer. Once – never again! All that blanching peeling was a lot of work! And hot – we had no AC! Now I'm more of a freezer kind of gal. My tip on peeling: slice the peaches in half before you try to peel them. The skins come off much more readily then – sometimes you can just slip it off with your fingers (don't even need a knife).
I also put the slices on cookie sheets then transfer to bags once frozen – that way you don't have clumps. But that might be too much work for as many peaches as you had! I also don't use a syrup, although I do drop the slices into a lemon-water solution before freezing, so they don't turn quite so brown.
Tricia – Thanks so much for your comment. Good idea on slicing the peaches in half before peeling. Also, great idea on not using sugar! I'm trying that next time 🙂
Tricia – Thanks so much for your comment. Good idea on slicing the peaches in half before peeling. Also, great idea on not using sugar! I'm trying that next time 🙂
I wish I had read this post earlier in the year. Oklahoma has beautiful peaches and I would have loved to capture some of that for the dreary winter months.