How to Freeze Peaches without Sugar

There is nothing like a fresh peach in the summer! But you can come close if you know how to freeze peaches without sugar!

 

*This article originally published Sep 7, 2012. But has been updated over the years with new photos and perfected techniques for your convenience to make the process even easier. 

 I love fresh peaches each fall! I go crazy over them as if you couldn’t tell by all the peach recipes we have on our site. I wish I could experience that fresh peach taste year round, even long after peaches have gone out of season!

Sure you can buy frozen peaches from the grocery store, but they just don’t taste the same. So I’m here to share with you our secret to freeze peaches and have them retain their delicious fresh peach flavor! And best of all, it’s all without sugar!

Easily Freeze peaches without sugar for fresh tasting peaches.

You can do this with any type of peach, but really the easiest and in my opinion the best tasting peaches are ripe Freestone peaches. The pits are easier to remove and it still leaves a great flavor behind.

First, you begin by blanching or peeling the peaches.

After all the skins are removed from the peaches you will want to cut the peaches in half, remove the pit and then slice to your desired chunks. I place them into a bowl as I go.

After all the peaches are cut and ready, I do a quick rinse. The next step is the soak.

This is the essential trick to keeping the peaches fresh and from turning brown when you freeze peaches.

Place the peaches in a water mixture of 1 Tablespoon lemon juice for every 2 cups water. You don’t need to let the peaches soak it in long. Really I just put the peaches in, stir a bit to ensure that each peach is coated and then drain.

Now because I hate frozen fruits in one big solid clump, I spread my peaches out on a cookie sheet, make sure they have room so they don’t freeze together in a clump.

This is great when you will be using the peaches for single serving items like in fruit smoothies, or as toppings to ice cream or yogurt. You are then able to just pull a few of the chunks out of the freezer and not have to defrost the entire bag to get your few peaches.

Now the hard part; finding room in your freezer for the cookie sheets to sit while you freeze peaches! That’s usually my biggest trial; clearing out space in my freezer.

You need to make sure the cookie sheet is level so the peaches don’t slide into a clump and freeze together. You also need to make sure nothing will squish the peaches while they freeze.

Between our regular freezer and our mini chest freezer, I can usually do two cookie sheets at a time. But thankfully we just splurged and bought ourselves an upright freezer for our 13 year anniversary! Yeah!

I have wanted one of these for longer than we have been married! So now I can go up to 8 cookie sheets at a time! But I only needed 6 cookie sheets this time.

Some people say to line the cookie sheet with wax paper or parchment paper before you freeze peaches, thinking it will prevent the peaches from freezing to the pan.

While yes it keeps the peaches from freezing to the cookie sheet, the peaches then freeze to the paper instead and I hate trying to peel small pieces of the paper off the frozen peaches.

After flash freezing your peaches for 4-24 hours, you can pull the cookie sheets out and transfer the frozen peaches into a more freezer safe container.

This really frees up a lot of room in your freezers, gives your cookie sheets back, but mostly it protects the peaches from getting freezer burn and lets them last longer.

All you do is take a sturdy spatula and coerce the frozen peaches off the cookie sheet. It usually isn’t hard at all.

For storing the peaches you can use any kind of freezer safe container. I used to use the thick freezer Ziploc bags. But be sure that you label them clearly so you can always be sure to use the oldest first.

Now just fill the bags. Be sure you can get a good seal when you close the bag. And don’t worry about the peaches freezing together since they are already mostly frozen they will remain in individual chunks unless you allow them to thaw slightly and get a “wet” coating which will refreeze them into one large chunk.

When you freeze preaches you can enjoy a fresh peach flavor year round.

The great thing about frozen peaches is that you can still use them like fresh peaches once you let them thaw. Or you can keep them frozen for delicious treats.

Frozen peaches make great fruit smoothies with a fresh peach flavor. You can also use your frozen peach chunks as ice cream toppings or in your yogurt.

Thawed peaches can then be used in cooking peach favorites like cobblers, peach pies and just about anything. You can even thaw the peaches and make our Maple Peach Jam in the middle of the winter if you run out!

They also make great snacks for kids, and excellent toppings for yogurt, granola, and ice cream. I personally love to throw a handful of frozen peaches into my fruit smoothies too! You can even use your thawed peaches to make Peach fruit leather!

UPDATE to How to Freeze Peaches

I wanted to stop back in and just give a quick update on a new method I now use. I still do this same method for freezing peaches. But I now use a FoodSaver with FoodSaver bags to store our frozen fruit in the freezer. I have had better success in this method than in the traditional freezer bags I used earlier in this post.

The FoodSaver method will allow your peaches to stay fresh without freezer burn a lot longer than a traditional airtight container.

The last year I used ziplock bags, my Peaches only lasted 4 months until the freezer burn ruined them. Using the FoodSaver method they last closer to 9 months to a year.

So if you have access to a FoodSaver I highly recommend packaging your frozen peaches in one of those. You will not regret it!

Was this How to freeze Peaches article helpful? Check out our How to Freeze Raspberries Post and How to freeze Currants! Make sure you get all your favorite produce stocked up for the winter!

You can also learn how to we Freeze Chicken Breasts!

 

 

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What are your favorite things to create with peaches?