If you’ve ever found yourself with an abundance of fresh fruit—maybe a bumper crop from your garden, a great deal at the farmers’ market, or just an overambitious grocery run—you know the sinking feeling of watching it go bad before you can use it all. The good news? Freezing fruit is one of the easiest ways to preserve that fresh flavour and avoid food waste.
Unlike canning or dehydrating, freezing requires minimal prep work. Whether you want to stock up on berries for smoothies, freeze peaches for winter cobblers, or have diced apples ready for homemade pies, knowing how to freeze fruit will save you time, money, and effort in the long run.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know—from selecting the best fruit for freezing to preventing freezer burn—so you can enjoy peak-season produce all year long. Let’s get started!
Choosing the Best Fruit for Freezing
The best fruit for freezing is in season, super ripe and on sale. We don’t want to be stocking our freezers with overpriced, under-flavoured winter strawberries.
The reality is that some fruits freeze better than others. There aren’t any hard and fast rules about it… more like trial and error. If you are unsure if a fruit is going to freeze well, do a test run with a small amount and see how it goes.
So what fruits do freeze well? You are looking at strawberries, raspberries (really any berry), peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, and avocados.
Some fruits you want to stay away from fruit like melons and citrus fruits. They can be tricky to freeze whole or in pieces and often don’t defrost well.
Preparing Fruit for Freezing
The first thing you want to do is thoroughly wash and dry your produce. I like to lay towels out on my counter to put the wet fruit on so that I don’t have to dry each piece individually.
Next, you want to remove any pits, stems or peels that you don’t want to eat. The fruit needs to go into the freezer the way you want to eat it. This is because you want to be able to use it straight from the freezer if necessary.
Next, you are going to cut the fruit into the size and shape that you would like to eat it in. I will leave raspberries and blueberries whole. Strawberries might get cut in half or left whole, depending on their size. Peaches are cut into bite-size wedges. Where avocados are cut into bite-size pieces.
The Best Method for Freezing Fruit
Flash freezing is my preferred method for freezing fruit at home. It requires no extra ingredients and uses supplies that you probably already have at home.
Once you have your fruit prepared for freezing, you are going to line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Don’t have parchment paper? Use a kitchen towel. You just need something so that your fruit isn’t sitting directly on the baking sheet. Lining the baking tray will make transferring the fruit to freezer bags significantly easier.
Lay the fruit out on the prepared baking sheet in a single layer. Don’t be too delicate about this. It’s ok if the fruit is touching, you just don’t want the pieces to be stacked on top of each other. We want the fruit to freeze as quickly as possible.
Then you are going to put the baking sheet full of fruit in the freezer. Leave it there until the fruit is frozen solid. This will take a couple of hours for most fruit.
Once the fruit is frozen solid, take the tray out of the freezer and transfer the frozen fruit to a freezer bag. You can use any size of freezer bag you like. You just want to get as much air out of the bag as possible. Removing the air will help keep the fruit from getting freezer burnt.
If you have a lot of fruit that you are planning on freezing, say a year’s worth. I would suggest using vacuum seal bags to store the frozen fruit in. This will ensure that all the air is removed from the bag and will help keep the fruit fresher longer.
Best Ways to Use Frozen Fruit
So you have a freezer full of frozen fruit. But what are you going to do with it? Your home frozen fruit can be used the same way as the bags of frozen fruit you buy from the grocery store. The home-frozen fruit can be used in smoothies, sauces, pies, crumbles and cobblers.
If you want to defrost your fruit before you eat it, simply take the bag out of the freezer and place it in the refrigerator. Once the fruit is defrosted, you can drain off the extra liquid and use the fruit however you like.
Maybe you had a bumper crop of berries from your garden but didn’t have time in the summer to deal with them all. You can still make jam from fruit after it has been frozen. Just put the frozen fruit directly into your jam pot and follow the instructions for your favourite recipe. This is a great way to alleviate some of the pressure of harvest season.
Common Freezing Mistakes to Avoid
There aren’t many mistakes that you can make when freezing fruit. But there are 3 key steps that will ensure the best outcome for freezing fruit at home.
It is tempting to freeze overripe fruit. And depending on how you plan to use it, it could be done. I would only freeze over-ripe fruit if I was planning on using it in smoothies. Freezing softens the texture of the fruit and overripe fruit will often come out of the freezer mushy.
Skipping the flashing freezing step is tempting in a time crunch. But flash-freezing fruit means that each piece of fruit is frozen individually. If you just take all your fresh fruit, put it in a bag and freeze it, you will end up with a huge frozen clump of fruit that you will have to chisel apart. Your future self will thank you for not skipping the flash-freezing step.
Your storage container matters. If you want your home frozen fruit to stay fresh for longer than a few weeks you need to pick an airtight container. A container that you can remove the air from is even better. Even in the freezer, air is the enemy of fresh food.
Freezing fruit at home is as simple as choosing a fresh, ripe fruit. Preparing it the way you would like to eat it and then sticking it in the freezer. Deciding to utilize your freezer for fruit allows you to stock up on your favourite fruit when it is in season or you find a great deal. Share your favourite fruit-freezing tips in the comments below!
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