How to Freeze Sliced Peaches

Hello again all! Sorry I wasn’t around on Monday to get a recipe up. I have this really delicious carrot squash soup lined up, but I needed to take a break. Friday we got an EOB in the mail for Monkey’s methacholine challenge. I was absolutely floored. I posted a picture of it on my Instagram in case you’re curious. Go ahead and check it out, and follow me while you’re there! It’s a sneak peek into our actual lives. Plus, I have some sneak peeks of things to come there too. You won’t regret it. 😉

Anyways, I needed to just take a day and mentally recover from that sticker shock and the weekend. So Monday I processed another round of applesauce. It was just what my mind needed at that time.

Last week I shared with you how I can fresh peaches. It’s an excellent way to support your local economy, and have access to fresh peaches all winter long. Plus, it’s so much more economical than buying canned peaches at grocery store prices.

This week though, I wanted to share with you how I freeze sliced peaches.

Sometimes the peaches ripen too fast for me to process them, or I’ve run out of jars to put them in. Whatever the reason, freezing fresh sliced peaches is a versatile way to have them on hand without being canned.

Now I have to warn you, the way I’m showing you today freezes them in sugar, which when combined with the juicy and ripe peaches, acts as a syrup. This makes them great when you need them for crisps or cobblers, but if you want them for other uses like smoothies, you need to thaw them a bit so you can remove the peaches from the sugar.

What You’ll Need:

Peaches
Small bowl
Medium bowl
Large bowl*
Large stock pot* – you only need this if you choose to blanch your peaches to peel them
Ladle – you only need this if you choose to blanch your peaches to peel them
Knife
Cutting Board
Sugar
Fruit Fresh*
Ziploc Freezer Bags* – I used the quart sizes

Gather Your Peaches

If you’ve got your own peach trees, or access to peach trees, then this should be a breeze for you! I don’t have any peach trees, so when peach season comes I have to get mine from a local orchard or the local you pick farms. I pay between $30-$32 for a bushel {about 50 pounds} of peaches.

Wash & Peel those Peaches!

This is the same method for prepping your peaches before you can them. If you already know how to do this part, you can skip down to making your sugar mixture.

I like to wash my peaches in the large bowl*. Not only does it remove dirt, bugs, and anything else that may be on the peaches, but it also takes off their fuzz. Peeling peaches is so much more enjoyable when I’m not battling with fuzz everywhere.

Now there’s two ways you could peel your peaches. For the last two years, I’ve been a fan of blanching them, but this year Hubs got me into a different method. I’ll get to that a bit later.

Blanching

If you opt to blanche your peaches, you’ll want to bring a pot of water to a gentle simmer while you wash them. I like to use my huge stock pot* for this. It’s the same one that I cook our applesauce in, or make our homemade chicken broth in.

After the peaches have been washed, I score a small ‘x’ in the bottom of the peach, and drop it into the simmering pot.

While your peaches are in their hot tub, refill your large bowl you washed your peaches in with some ice cold water.

Within few minutes later, you’ll see the peel starting to pull away from the peach where you scored it. The peach is ready to be taken out of the simmering water, and dunked into ice cold water in your big bowl.

I like to let them sit in the cold water for about 5 minutes before I take them out and let them finish cooling on a towel.

After they’ve cooled, their peels will easily peel off.

Without Blanching

This past year, Hubs mentioned that if the peaches are really ripe, the peel will slip right off. Since I had been so used to blanching them the last few years, I thought he was going about peeling them the slow way. The honest truth of it is, blanching peaches was just as fast as Hubs’ method once you factored in the time it took for their huge hot tub to come to a simmer.

In order to peel them this way, you still need to wash your peaches. Like I said before, it just makes it so much easier when you’re not dealing with a ton of fuzz.

Slice your peaches in half. I like to use the natural dimple in the fruit as a guideline.

Gently twist you peach to split into two halves.

Starting from where the stem was, gently peel the skin off of the peach.

I’ll reiterate, this method didn’t take any more or less time than blanching from start to finish, and we went through the same amount of peaches doing both methods. But the peaches had to be ready-to-eat ripe in order for this to work. Personally, I can see this being my go-to method on those really hot and humid days, when standing over a canner is tedious enough.

Pit and Slice

After you’ve peeled them, you want to remove the pit, slice them, and place them in a medium bowl.

When you get to 4 cups of sliced peaches, you’re ready for the next step.

Make Your Sugar Mixture

In a small bowl, mix together 2/3 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons of fruit fresh*. Sprinkle the sugar mixture over the sliced peaches, and toss them together gently.

Let the peaches sit for about 10 minutes or so. I let them sit while I peel and slice another 4 cups of peaches.

Store

After your fruit mixture has sat, pack it into freezer bags, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Personally, I like to freeze them in 4 cup increments. It makes it easier to know how much fruit is in each bag when I need to use them.