Cabbage is a staple ingredient in so many dishes, and you don’t even have to cook it. That’s not to say it’s not a great ingredient in cooked dishes, like stews or soup.
But the versatility of the cabbage leaves you with many options, especially when it comes to how you want to prepare it before you actually use it.
Maybe you grow your own cabbage, and this particular season your plants have produced a heck of a lot more cabbage than you were expecting.
Maybe you’ve underestimated your crops’ yield ability this season, if you were basing it off of a previous year. Or, the weather’s acted completely differently, giving you a much bigger yield of cabbage, and you’ve no idea what to do with it.
Maybe you’d like to buy cabbage in larger quantities in order to save money, or you just want to take some prep time out of making meals.
Freezing cabbage (see also Can You Freeze Cooked Cabbage) would solve all of these problems. Keep reading to discover several ways to freeze cabbage (see also Freezing Red Cabbage), and which might be easiest.
How Do You Freeze Shredded or Diced Cabbage?
In order to freeze cabbage, you’ll first need to make sure it’s clean. Peel off the outer leaves and rinse the cabbage.
Shred, chop, or dice the cabbage how you usually would. Don’t forget to take the core out.
It’s not necessary to blanch the cabbage before you freeze it, but it’s a good habit to get into.
Blanching vegetables before you freeze them stops harmful bacteria from being able to grow while the vegetables are in your freezer. Some bacteria are very resistant to extreme cold, and some just go dormant.
To blanch the cabbage, put it in boiling water for about 3 minutes maximum, and then stick it into very cool water or even an ice bath in order to stop it cooking from residual heat.
Once it has cooled, take the cabbage out and dry it. It’s now ready to pack. If you’d like to add any seasoning to the cabbage, do it now.
Otherwise, put the cabbage into freezer bags, label, and stick the bags into the freezer.
Can You Freeze Shredded Cabbage to Make Coleslaw Later?
If you’ve realized that you don’t need all that shredded cabbage after you’ve shredded it, don’t worry, you can still freeze it. You might not need all that coleslaw (see also Can You Freeze Coleslaw) at once.
Just pop them into freezer bags, making sure to get rid of the excess air, seal and put them in to freeze.
You can always blanch them beforehand if you prefer.
Blanched cabbage will last a very long time in the freezer (but after a month, it will start to lose its quality), and it helps if you’ve already prepared it to the size and form you need.
How to Freeze Cabbage Wedges or Leaves
While the process of preparing and freezing cabbage leaves or wedges is similar to that of shredded cabbage, there are few differences that you need to pay attention to.
Remove outer leaves and rinse under the tap as normal. Then divide it as you wish, either into individual leaves or wedges.
It is preferable to blanch it, but it’s not necessary.
You can also flash freeze it, if you’d like to pack a load of cabbage into a single container, but you don’t want them to clump together.
This involves laying them onto a baking sheet and putting them directly into the freezer for a short time, and then you can freeze them together in one container without them clumping.
This is a great way of freezing cabbage, as you don’t then have to defrost the lot at once. You can simply take out what you need.
Conclusion
There are a few different ways to freeze cabbage, and you should pick the one that suits the free space you have in your freezer, as well as how much time you want to spend prepping.
Like most frozen food, it’s best used in cooked dishes, as freezing it does change the texture and the quality somewhat.
You’re better off leaving its raw form for dishes you won’t be cooking, otherwise you may find the thawed version too watery.
