Preserving Summer Food For Winter Use

By Eva Lewandowski

Summer and early fall are definitely the bountiful times for local produce in Minnesota. Whether you grow your own food, belong to a CSA, or shop your local farmers market or co-op, you’re no doubt presented with more fresh fruit and vegetables than you can reasonably consume. Instead of forcing yourself to choose between the many local food items available this time of year, I recommend buying a little of everything and preserving it for the long winter months.

There are many ways to put food away for future use, including canning, dehydrating, and freezing. Canning is certainly one of the most popular options, but to be honest, it’s one that I never enjoyed doing. I’ve always found canning to be rather hot, finicky work, but I know plenty of people who absolutely love to can. If you’re interested in preserving food by canning, we have some great articles on the Do It Green! Minnesota website on the topic.

Instead of canning, I primarily freeze and dehydrate food for long-term storage. Freezing tends to be easier for me, and it works on a much wider range of foods; however, the downside is that it has very specific storage requirements- namely, in a freezer. If you’re like me and have limited freezer space, that means you’ll have to be at least a little picky with what you decide to freeze. I like to freeze things that are much more expensive during the off-season, like Brussel sprouts, green beans, and summer fruit. For vegetables, I either blanch them first, or I sauté or stir-fry a mix of vegetables together and freeze that in single portion containers. For fruit, I like to blend up a variety of different fruits and freeze the smoothie-like mixture in ziplock bags or in popsicle molds. They can be eaten as is or used in baking throughout the winter months.

I find that dehydrating works best on apples and pears, as well as herbs. I know many people also regularly dehydrate vegetables like carrots and onions. These can then be used in soups or casseroles. I’ve done this, but since carrots and onions store well throughout the winter as is, I don’t see much need to preserve them by dehydration. Drying herbs is also very popular, and can be a great way to make the most out of large crops of dill, basil, or oregano. The great thing about dehydrating is that while you certainly can use an electric dehydrator, you can also do it the old fashioned way- either with a solar dehydrator or just by hanging your food in a dry room.

However you decide to preserve your food, it will bring a nice reminder of summer to your meals in the middle of our long Minnesota winters. Check out the Minnesota Grown Directory for places that you can purchase delicious local produce this summer, and start saving your food!

Our Sponsors