Do you know you can preserve your vegetables without losing nutrients? Through blanching, our vegetables can be well preserved. Blanching is the cooking process of scalding vegetables into boiling water before storing them in a freezer to maintain the cell structure and green colour.  This is done to stop the enzyme action which causes the loss of flavour, colour and texture in vegetables before storing in a freezer. It kills about 99.9% of bacteria and microorganisms which reduces the chance of foodborne illness. Let’s get to it.
Sort your vegetables to remove the unwanted parts then wash thoroughly and chop into the desired size, I used spinach for this(Popularly known as “efo or green leaf”) but most vegetables such as carrot, green beans, cabbages e.t.c can be blanched.
While you’re chopping your vegetables, start boiling your water in a pot ( Enough water to take the vegetable you are about to blanch). Once boiled, add 2tablespoonfuls of salt into the boiling water (salt helps maintain the colour of the vegetable).
Add the chopped spinach into the boiling water and allow to simmer for about 1-2minutes(Do not over blanch to avoid loss of flavours, colour, vitamins and minerals).
Then sieve your vegetable and immediately pour them into a bowl containing chilled or ice water. This is to prevent the vegetable from overcooking.
Drain the cold water and squeeze out the excess moisture before storing it in a freezer.
So the interesting thing about blanching is that you get to use your vegetables anytime without going through the washing and chopping processes. Hope you learnt something new today? Go try it out.
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