What Is Parsley – Freezing It Fresh – Curly vs Flat Leaf Parsley – Best Variety – Storing Fresh Parsley – Summary
There are many ways to freeze parsley. The most important part is that we want to still keep the flavor of the herb. Sometimes if we were to mismanage handling the herb, then it will make for a very flavorless frozen parsley.
Below are some of our best and favorite ways of freezing parsley. It’s a pretty simple process. Good thing to know as well since preserving and storing your harvest is very important to know.
What Is Parsley
Parsley is a very common herb that a lot of gardens are growing themselves at home. There are some more used varieties than others when it comes to parsley. Flat leaf parsley is the most widely grown one but curly leaf parsley is also very nice.
Lastly we also have root parsley. This might be a bit under the radar for most people but definitely a great option if you want to take your garden to the next level.
How To Freeze Fresh Parsley
Like we said before there are a number of different ways you could be freezing parsley to preserve it for the long term. Below are some of our favorite ways to use them. They will maintain the flavor and the color of the parsley very well.
Freezing Parsley In Bags
This is probably the easiest way to freeze parsley. Simple cut down the parsley slightly. Lay it in a freezer bag, label it and throw it in the freezer. This is for sure the fastest and the easiest way to freeze parsley. You could skip the step of cutting the parsley, but then you might have to do that after defrosting the parsley instead.
Parsley Ice Cubes
This is also a pretty efficient way of storing and freezing parsley. Take a mold for freezing ice cubes and fill them with parsley. Make sure you are filling them very well so that there is less water having to go in there. You see, after you fill the molds with parsley you pour water over it. Freeze it and then you have small parsley ice cubes you can pop out whenever you want to.
Parsley Pesto
Making a parsley pesto is really simple. This is done by simply mixing the parsley with oil into a pesto-like texture. Add some chopped pine nuts until you have a pretty rough texture. This is then frozen in small cubes. These are super easy to then just pull out and use in your cooking adventures.
Difference Between Curly And Flat Leaf Parsley
The main difference between the curly and the flat leaf parsley is really just the look of them. They will taste pretty much exactly the same. They grow much the same way too. Parsley really likes a spot where the soil is kept rather well watered but it also lets water drain through too.
On top of that, parsley enjoys quite a lot of sun during the summer season. Finding a relatively sunny spot to keep your parsley will make sure you have a lot of harvest for the whole season.
Best Parsley Variety To Freeze
The easiest parsley variety to freeze is definitely the flat leaf parsley. It’s not as fragile as the curly parsley. It will keep the shape very well after defrosting. For freezing flat leaf parsley we would definitely recommend you to use the ice cube method. The leaves will more or less look just the same after defrosting, and also keeping all that wonderful flavor.
Storing Fresh Parsley In The Fridge
Storing fresh parsley is really simple. We always recommend the same thing for all herbs and vegetables. You want to have it in an air-tight container to keep moisture away. But in the container keep some kitchen paper that will suck up and mouse getting in. Keep the box in the fridge to slow down bacterial growth.
The reason we want to keep moisture away is that mold grows very well in humid environments. But in the fridge this process is slowed down even further. The only thing that will happen to your presley now is that they will slowly dry out instead of molding.
Summary And Conclusion
Freezing parsley is really simple. There are a number of ways you can go about doing this. But to crown a winner, then we really like the ice cube method. This will be very gentle to the herb.
After they are frozen it’s very simple to just take some out and defrost them before using them in cooking.
