Can you freeze cabbage? Cabbage is a widely used vegetable. It’s often used raw in salads but it’s also often added to soups or stews. So you’re growing your own cabbage and you’d like to freeze some cabbage to use it within a few months. Or you’d like to buy a few cabbage heads on a sale to save some money and keep some of them for later. Or you live far away from a store that sells great fresh cabbage and you’d like to stock up on it. Freezing cabbage seems to be the best solution for all mentioned issues. In fact, you can freeze cabbage and there are a few ways how you can do it.
How to Freeze Shredded or Chopped Cabbage?
- Preparation. Discard the coarse outer leaves and wash the cabbage. Now it’s time to shred or chop it. Remember to leave its core out and throw it away.
- Blanching. Blanching cabbage is an optional process, but most people recommend doing it. I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t do it – it takes only a few minutes. In order to blanch cabbage you need to boil a large pot of water, put the cabbage in there and after 2-3 minutes you should take it from the boiling water and rapidly cool it down. You can do that easily using cold running water in a bowl. Once the cabbage is cold, drain the water and dry the cabbage. Check out our guide to blanching veggies for more details.
- Packing. If you need to add some seasonings to the cabbage, now is a great time to do it. Then transfer the cabbage into freezer bags, squeeze out excess air and seal them. Label the bags with the name and date if needed.
- Transfer the bags into the freezer.
Can you freeze shredded cabbage for coleslaw?
Yes. If you have shredded an enormous cabbage and won’t be able to use all of it right away, freezing is a great way out. Transfer the shredded cabbage into freezer bags, remove the air from the bags and seal them. You’re now ready to throw them into the freezer. If you freeze shredded cabbage for coleslaw quite often and it sits in the freezer for only a few days, try freezing with and without blanching and compare the results. Also, make sure to check out our article on freezing coleslaw.
Freezing cabbage leaves or wedges
The process of freezing cabbage leaves is very similar to freezing shredded cabbage, but with a few key differences. Here’s how it goes:
- Preparation. Remove the outer leaves and wash the cabbage. Then separate it into leaves or wedges (each wedge should cut into the core, so everything sticks together).
- Blanching. Everything said in freezing shredded cabbage applies here as well.
- Flash freezing (optional). If you’re freezing cabbage leaves or wedges and would like to pack a few of these together into a single bag, they will freeze together. That’s fine if you plan on defrosting all of them at once. But if you would like to defrost only one or two at a time, flash freezing will get the job done.
- Packing. Throw the leaves or wedges into freezer bags, remove excess air and seal them. Put a name and a date on the bags if needed.
- Put the bags into the freezer.
Summary
As you can see, there are a few ways how you can freeze cabbage. You should choose a way that is the most appropriate for your needs. Please remember that frozen and defrosted cabbage works best in cooked dishes like soups or stews. When it comes to using it in raw dishes, it will be not as good as fresh cabbage.