How to blanch your winter spinach
overwintered spinach from our farm, extra sweet and hearty
Want to enjoy your spinach well beyond the harvest? Do you love spinach and are you a bit afraid of what your life will look like without it? Same. Lucky for you, this spinach you’re gettin’ in your box will last for most of the winter. Right before it’s about to go - sometimes we find our spinach can last up to an entire month - if we’re not ready to eat it, we’ll just blanch, freeze, and save it for later. Use it however you’d use cooked spinach. It’s easier than you think.
THOROUGHLY WASH AND DRY
We’re not sure why it’s so important to dry those leaves off after you wash them other than that they degenerate quickly if you leave them too long in a bath. The washing is important because you won’t have a place to do this later.
PREPARE AN ICE BATH
Out of ice? Get some or make some, we’ve tried to blanch spinach without an ice bath just using cold water and the water is just not cold enough to cool it down quickly enough. We use a big pot, filled with ice and water, enough that we can put a colander in the pot and have the water seep into the colander.
BOIL WATER, PUT SPINACH IN COLANDER, SUBMERGE SPINACH
The key here is to make sure you don’t let the spinach boil for any longer than one minute. One minute is not a long time. You’ll want to transfer it immediately, so be sure to submerge it with a colander as stated above, or something you can get it out quickly with, because even the process of draining the boiling water will add too much heat to the leaves.
DID YOU LET IT BOIL TOO LONG?
No worries, it just won’t be as green. Chris’ overwintered spinach is so much more nutrient dense than usual spinach that whatever additional nutrient loss that happened in those moments is not enough for you to toss the batch. It will still keep well and taste good.
DRY AND FREEZE
Next most important point is that now that it has cooled down, take it out of the cold bath immediately and dry it out. You’ll be able to basically ring out the spinach. Then, if you want it chopped to make things easier later, do that now. Transfer to a freezer-safe container. Voila!