Preserving the Harvest

Freezing 20 Pounds of Organic Peaches

Peaches - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
Peaches - The Self Sufficient HomeAcre
Peaches!

Freezing Peaches

This week I received my monthly order from my Azure Standard (#ad) buying club, including 20 pounds of organic peaches. There aren’t any organic peach growers locally, and since peaches are sprayed with a lot of pesticides, I was glad to find organic peaches in bulk.

Since we can’t eat 20 pounds of peaches up fast enough, I wanted to preserve them for the winter. I still have peach jam and canned peaches, so I decided to take a little short cut and freeze the fuzzy goodies.

Chopped and mixed with lemon juice...these peaches just need some sugar and they'll be ready to freeze.
Chopped and mixed with lemon juice…these peaches just need some sugar and they’ll be ready to freeze.

How to Freeze Peaches:

  1. Wash, peel, and chop the fruit. The easy way to peel peaches is to dunk them for 30 seconds into boiling water then plunge them into cold water. The peels slip off easily.
  2. Mix the fruit with sugar and lemon juice (you can also use ascorbic acid or citric acid). I used about 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of lemon juice per 8 cups of chopped fruit.
  3. Pack into freezer containers and add syrup or lemon juice to cover fruit. The syrup is made by mixing hot water or juice with sugar and lemon juice or ascorbic acid until the sugar dissolves. I just poured lemon juice over the fruit to cover.
  4. Leave 1/2″ headspace and label container with the contents and date. Place in freezer on level surface. (I used 1 quart plastic freezer containers that are BPA free.)

The 20 pounds of fruit yielded 6 quart containers for the freezer plus several days of fresh eating for our family of 3.

This is how I freeze peaches and I’m happy with the results. Sometimes the fruit on top gets slightly browned, so that’s why I started adding the lemon juice on top. However, you may wish to read the instructions for freezing peaches on The National Center for Home Food Preservation. * There is a ton of great information on their site, and they aren’t trying to sell you anything. I suggest bookmarking the website for all of your home food preservation questions.

Are you preserving peaches this year? What is your favorite technique?

6 Comments on “Freezing 20 Pounds of Organic Peaches

  1. Great article, Lisa, and I will be sure to order a case of stone fruit next time I get a chance from my CSA! For freezing snap on plastic containers, do you just leave a 1/2 space at tope? I froze some tomatillo sauce we made on Friday and that’s what I did.

    1. Hi Kaye,
      Good point! Yes, I leave about 1/2″ of headspace at the top. There needs to be a bit of space for expansion in the container. Tomatillo sauce sounds yummy!

  2. This was a great article i gave away at least 20 or 30 pounds of organic peaches this year.it was a bumper crop did not know we could freeze them.have tons of peach jam and eat lots of fresh peaches. All so love the tip on how to peal them.keep up the great work

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