Freezing Zucchini

It's that time of year again. Zucchini explosion.


This year I've decided to try freezing some. I've never done this before so it's kind of trial and error. With this batch I grated some and will use it for bread/bars/muffins. I will later try and do some chopped up for soups.

Of course I started out by washing them and cutting the ends off but I also figured I should take out the seeds.


I used my handy Pampered Chef tool for this and it worked perfectly.


I left my hand in the pic so you could have a reference for how big this zucchini was. I got a little more than two cups with this size.


I used side of my grater that is on the left. I figure this is more grating, the one on the right more shredding.


This is what it looked like when I got it grated.


Now for the dilema. Do I freeze w/ all the juice or not? Since we're going w/ trial and error here I did both. Since I am going to be baking with this batch of zucchini I figured it'd be better to go w/ less juice.

The first bag I just grabbed some off the top here w/ some that was sitting in the juice. I didn't pour all the juice in, just didn't squeeze it out.
Looked like this.


Next I decided to try some strained.


Looked like this:

Still some juice but not quite as much.

Next I decided to press the zucchini w/ my hand while it was in the strainer. Looks like this:


Once again, still some juice but not quite as much.

We shall see how it turns out! I'm using the Ziplock vacuum bags this year. I like them. It helped to let the part w/ stuff in it hang over the edge of the counter while I sucked the air out so the juice stayed out of the way of the hole you suck the air out of.