When you bring home a large batch of fresh veggies and fruit from the farmers’ market or grocery store, it’s always a race to the finish line. It’s the end of the week before you realise it, and you’ve got rotting asparagus and cilantro in the fridge. Different fruits and vegetables necessitate different techniques to guarantee they remain as fresh as possible. You wouldn’t put a potato in the refrigerator, and you shouldn’t handle herbs the same way you would berries or salad greens. If you haven’t heard it yet, there are some lesser-known but surprisingly simple ways for keeping crisp, crunchy vegetables like carrots fresh for a long time.
Here’re a few ways to improve the shelf life of carrots:
1. Put them in a can
Canning carrots is a good way to preserve them. However, due to their low acid content, carrots must be canned in a pressure canner. They cannot be canned safely in a water bath canner. Despite the fact that pressure canning is an efficient technique of food preservation, the USDA warns against using a pressure cooker for canning since there are too many distinct models with inconsistent results. Experienced homesteaders who know their way around a pressure canner, on the other hand, can safely may carrots for long-term storage.
2. Pickle them
In a bowl, combine two teaspoons of salt, one tablespoon of sugar, and half a cup of rice vinegar. To create quick pickled carrots, combine one cup of thinly sliced carrots with the mixture and let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature. For a few weeks, pickled carrots can be stored in the refrigerator.
3. Store them in a root cellar
Unwashed carrots should be kept in a cool, dark location, like a root cellar, if you have access to one. Put them in a container that is tightly closed with mulch, sawdust, leaves, or wet sand. Given that the carrots will stay fresh for several months, this is a fantastic solution for bulk storage.
4. Dehydrate them
Carrot dehydration takes all of the moisture from the vegetable, causing it to shrink and dry completely. Carrots can be rehydrated by soaking them in cold water until they regain their normal shape. To begin dehydrating carrots, remove the green tips of the carrots. Scrub and rinse the carrots thoroughly before slicing or dicing them uniformly. Blanch the carrot slices for three to four minutes in a large pot of boiling water. To stop the carrots from cooking, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them in an ice bath. Place the carrots on a baking sheet and arrange them in a single layer. Dehydrate the carrots for 12 to 24 hours in a dehydrator or oven at 125 degrees Fahrenheit. When the carrots are done, they should be crispy.
5. Put them in the freezer
If you want to keep your carrots for more than a few weeks but don’t have a root cellar, freezing is the next best option. To begin, rinse and scrub the carrots to eliminate any dirt. Blanching carrots briefly in boiling water keeps their colour and reduces the cooking time for frozen carrots. If you want to make a carrot cake with your frozen carrots, shred them with a box grater or in a food processor before freezing them in freezer bags. You may also freeze whole carrots cut into coins on a baking sheet coated with parchment paper. Remove the coins from the baking sheet when they have solidified and place them in freezer bags or an airtight container. For up to a year, carrots can be frozen.
