How To Preserve Blackberries In Your Freezer
Luscious blackberries
Everyone loves blackberries
I love picking berries. Once I've eaten all I can hold, and have made a few cobblers, I like to put blackberries into the freezer.
It's really easy to freeze blackberries, and you get to enjoy all that berry goodness throughout the year.
What You'll Need
blackberries -- any amount
foil-covered baking sheet
freezer bags (I use gallon-sized bags)
How to Prepare the Blackberries
Blackberries are incredibly easy to freeze.
Cover a baking sheet with foil.
Don't wash your berries! (If you wash berries, they get mushy.)
Pick through them to remove the ones that are still red, and to remove any stems. As you go through them, place them onto the baking sheet. Don't mound them -- simply lay them in a single layer. It's okay if they touch each other.
Don't skip the picking-through part because you'll also have little leaves here and there, and the occasional sticker-covered bramble.
If you have a LOT of blackberries, then you'll need a second baking sheet... Or, if you only have one baking sheet, after the first batch has frozen then do your next batch on the same baking sheet.
One year there was a bumper crop of blackberries along the Russian River near my home, so in addition to the baking sheet, I also placed the picked-over berries onto aluminum pie plates to freeze.
How To Freeze Blackberries
Put the baking sheet into your freezer for about two hours, until the berries are fully frozen.
(If you have a small freezer, and your baking sheet won't fit into it, then you can use a 13X9 baking pan to freeze your berries in batches.)
Once the berries are frozen, place them into freezer bags.
Write the date, and where you picked the blackberries, on the freezer bag.
Blackberries will keep for about a year in the freezer.
This process makes it easy to remove a couple for tossing into a blackberry milkshake or smoothie -- or taking out a bag or more to make a pie or cobbler.
Quick background: before I figured out how to freeze blackberries, I poured the fresh berries into a bag and put them in the freezer. I ended up with a big frozen clump of berries. You'll be glad you took the time to freeze them in the manner I've described.
Enjoy!
