rescue operation: freezing stored garlic, onions
REACHING INTO THE NET BAG of onions in my barn this morning, I got a little wakeup call—from a few onions that were themselves waking up. Uh-oh. A quick check of the garlic revealed a couple of restless heads as well. An extra-warm winter has meant an extra-warm storage space, so it’s time to intervene before all is lost. I’m peeling and freezing whole garlic cloves and chopped onions today to get me the rest of the way into the next harvest. It’s simple:
I slice or chop onions and put them in freezer bags or—to avoid plastic—freezer jars. Freezing the amount you typically use for a recipe in one container rather than a giant portion is easier when it comes time to use the produce.
With the onion pieces and with whole, peeled cloves of garlic, I toss them lightly in a very small amount of olive oil first, hoping to reduce any freezer burn. By freezing about half my cloves each year I never buy garlic but have my own all 12 months. There are several tactics for doing this.
- Read my popular post on how to grow and store a year of garlic.
Freezing a portion of your harvest can and should be done at the time the crops are dug and cured, of course—and they’ll be firmer and fresher then (though garlic can be harder to peel when it’s at its peak concentration of oils). But if some of what you have on hand right now isn’t keeping well, hurry and rescue it by freezing—or making a big batch of stock or soup or something else. With the onions, the choice of rescue-remedy recipe is a no-brainer (and freezes beautifully itself):
One more thing: Be sure to check on other foodstuffs—stored vegetables such as potatoes, winter squash–and overwintering ornamental plants in the garage, basement, coldframe or elsewhere as well right about now. Substantially longer days (and in my location, the unseasonably warm weather) may mean some stored tropicals or not-quite-hardy trees and shrubs want a bit of water or other care to make it the rest of the way till freedom time, or that some tubers and such might be showing signs of decline.
Hi my first year of growing garlic (I think about 24.) I love your information, but being new, it is overwhelming. I am having hand surgery in the fall, and want to freeze as much as possible. To put them in ice cube trays confirm I separate the cloves, put them in a cube 2T olive oil and 1T garlic cloves? Do I chop them first? Can I wash them off and at what point? Mine just sprouted the flowers, so I will cut those off tomorrow. Only one bottom leaf has turned brown. I might have to hang them in the house, the garage is hot. So much great info -thank you! Zone 8B Vancouver, WA
More details on storing/freezing the cloves in various ways are in this story. I don’t use ice cube trays but store whole, peeled cubes in freezer jars that (I first coat the cloves with a tiny bit of olive oil).