Supermarkets are seeing a rise in shoppers – both in store and online – as people stock up their homes amid the threat of coronavirus. Long life items such as hand soap, pasta and toilet roll are flying off the shelves due to the unprecedented demand.
Some shops have been forced to impose limits on how much their customers can buy in one go.
While Sainsburys boss Mike Coupe told shoppers there was enough food coming into the system.
But he added the firm has made the decision to limit sales so that products “stay on shelves for longer and can be bought by a larger number of customers”.
But if you have more carrots than you can use in the short-term, can you freeze them for long-term storage?
What does COVID-19 stand for?
The coronavirus we are experiencing now is actually one strain of a family of viruses – called coronavirus – that cause disease in animals
The strain was given the interim name of 2019-nCoV, which accounts for the year of discovery, its status as a “novel” virus, and its family name (CoV).
It was then renamed COVID-19, which stands for Corona Virus Disease 2019. READ MORE…
Can you freeze carrots?
Yes, you can freeze carrots – good news for those of you running out of room in your fridge.
And Express.co.uk has a guide on the best way to do this.
To freeze carrots, you must first trim them down.
It is also important to blanch them to kill potentially harmful bacteria before = placing them in the freezer.
Fortunately, this process is easy enough and you’ll have plenty of frozen carrots in no time if you follow our step-by-step guide below.
1. Prepare your carrots
Choose carrots that are young and fresh – do not use limp or dried out carrots.
Medium length carrots are the best to use, as baby carrots do not retain their flavour well after being frozen.
Wash you carrots well to remove dirt and then peel.
Chop off both ends and discard, then cut your carrots as desired – either into coins, or thin strips.
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2. Blanch your carrots
Fill a pot with water and boil it over a high heat.
Then prepare a large bowl of ice water, which should be about the same size as your pan of boiling water, and fill with about one tray of ice.
Transfer your chopped carrots into the boiling water and leave for about two minutes to cook them briefly.
Then quickly transfer your carrots from the pan into the ice water, and let them sit there for they same time as they were give in the boiling water (about two minutes).
When they’ve finished in the ice water, drain the carrots.
3. Freezing your carrots
Lay your carrot slices or batons out on a baking sheet in a single layer, taking care they don’t touch or overlap, then place in the freezer for 1 to 2 hours until they are frozen solid.
Pre-freezing the carrots prevents them from sticking together when frozen.
Then, slid the carrots off the single layer baking tray and pop into a storage container or a reusable bag to store in the freezer in a bulk.
If you don’t want to pre-freeze your carrots, simply move past those steps and add the drained carrots into a container and store right away.
How long can you freeze carrots for?
Carrots will retain their flavour and colour for about nine months when blanched and stored correctly in your freezer.
If in a vacuum packed container or plastic bag and put in a deep freeze, they could last for u to 14 months.
Frozen carrots are best used in cooked dishes, such as a cottage pie, rather than eating raw.
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