Freezing Beets

Since beets are almost exclusively used in a cooked form, which means that losing the raw texture is less important, so they do freeze fairly well. Here's how to freeze beets to store in your freezer at home. Freezing keeps beets safe to eat almost indefinitely, but the recommended maximum storage time of 12 months is best for taste and quality.

Directions

Step 1 - Selecting the beets

The most important step!  Select deep, uniformly-red, tender, young beets. You need beets that are FRESH and crisp.  Limp, old beets will make nasty tasting canned beets.  Guests will probably throw them at you.. Select firm, crisp beets. Remove and discard any soft, diseased, spotted and chewed up beets.

How many beets and where to get them

You can grow your own, pick your own, or buy them at the grocery store. About 7 pounds of 2- to 21/2-inch diameter beets makes about 8 pints of beets.

 

 

 

Step 2 - Trim the ends and cut into smaller pieces

Just take a sharp knife and trim off beet tops, leaving an 1/2 to 1 inch of stem and roots to prevent bleeding of color.

Step 3 -Wash the beets!

I'm sure you can figure out how to scrub the beets in plain cold or lukewarm water using your hands or a vegetable brush. It's easier to wash them after you've cut off the tops.

Step 4 - Cook the beets

Put similar sized beets (hopefully, they're ALL of a similar size so they take the same time to cook) together with enough boiling water to cover them and cook until tender (usually for small beets 25 to 30 minutes; for medium beets 45 to 50 minutes, in an open pot, or 10 - 15 minutes in a pressure cooker). Drain and discard the liquid.

 

 

Step 5 - Cool the beets

You can pour ice over them, or just let them cool on their own.  It's just to cool them enough so you can handle them to remove the skins, stems, roots and then slice or quarter them.

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6 - Trim, peel and slice

Trim off the roots and stems. The skins should easily slide off. Slice the beets into 1/4-inch slices.  You can leave the beets whole (if they are small, say 1 inch or less), or quarter them or slice them into 1/4-inch slices. 

Step 7 - Package, label and freeze

Package in ziploc freezer bags, or better, in a vacuum food saver bag. Label; e.g., "Beets" and the current date. Seal and freeze.

Freezing keeps beets safe to eat almost indefinitely, but the recommended maximum storage time of 12 months is best for taste and quality. The quality of the frozen beets is maintained best in a very cold freezer (deep freezer), and one that keeps them frozen completely with no thaw cycles. Excluding any air from inside the bags which leads to freezer burn, by using vacuum-sealed bags, is also important to maintaining quality.

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