I’m sure, just like me, you have thrown away a few stalks of celery in your lifetime. I can’t even imagine how many I have thrown away because I only needed one or two stalks for each recipe. It drives me crazy to waste all that extra celery, but I never remembered to use up the rest. Here is the money-saving solution: freeze the leftovers!
It’s such a simple solution and it really doesn’t take long. It’s great too because then the next time a recipe calls for celery, you don’t have to go out and buy yet another head of celery. When I freeze one head of celery I am able to use if for 4-5 different recipes before I need to buy more. Feel free to freeze more than this too if you’d like to just stock up and have a bunch ready for you.
Here are the steps:
1.Place a medium sized pot of water on a burner and bring to a boil
2. While you’re waiting for the water to boil, prepare your celery. Separate and wash each individual stalk of celery.
3. Chop the celery into 1 inch pieces.
4. Once your pot of water is at a rolling boil, place your chopped celery into the water and set a timer for 3 minutes.
5. While the celery is boiling prepare an ice bath by placing a couple of handfuls of ice in a bowl and adding about 2 cups of water.
6. Once your timer goes off, strain the celery and place it into your prepared ice bath to stop the celery from cooking further. Stir them around a bit to speed up the cooling process.
7. remove the celery pieces from the ice bath and set them out to dry on a dry towel.
8. Grab a freezer bag and write “Celery” and the date on your freezer bag.
9. Once the celery is dry, place it in a freezer bag and remove as much air as possible.
10. I believe that the frozen celery is good for up to a year, but I’ve never been able to test this theory because ours has never lasted this long, I use it up too quickly.
- 1 head of celery
- ice and water
- Place a medium sized pot of water on a burner and bring to a boil
- While you're waiting for the water to boil, prepare your celery. Separate and wash each individual stalk of celery.
- Chop the celery into 1 inch pieces.
- Once your pot of water is at a rolling boil, place your chopped celery into the water and set a timer for 3 minutes.
- While the celery is boiling prepare an ice bath by placing a couple of handfuls of ice in a bowl and adding about 2 cups of water.
- Once your timer goes off, strain the celery and place it into your prepared ice bath to stop the celery from cooking further. Stir them around a bit to speed up the cooling process.
- remove the celery pieces from the ice bath and set them out to dry on a dry towel.
- Once the celery is dry, place it in a labeled freezer bag. Don't forget to write "Celery" and the date on your freezer bag.
- I believe that the frozen celery is good for up to a year, but ours has never lasted this long.
Good luck on your celery-freezing endeavors!
Kristin
nancy says:
You have educated me today, Kristin! Thank you! Still, I don’t cook much these days but I sure could have used this as a young homemaker! You are a smart cookie!
kristin reichert says:
Haha, thanks! yeah, it’s kind of silly to just throw away the extras right? It killed me to just toss it out every time.