The Right Way to Freeze Peaches to Keep Them Sweet and Juicy

There is nothing quite like a ripe summer peach. They’re juicy, sweet, and delicious, but they don’t last long. Fresh, ripe peaches only keep for a few days and peach season is short. That’s why it’s a smart move to store some in the freezer to enjoy later. To learn how to freeze peaches properly, we spoke to a food scientist who shares the two simple techniques that will allow you to freeze your summer peach bounty now and enjoy it in pies, smoothies, and more whenever you like.

Choosing Peaches to Freeze

When you purchase frozen fruits and vegetables from the grocery store, they are flash-frozen and packaged when the ingredients are super ripe and in season—that’s why they are consistently delicious. When you’re freezing peaches at home, the most important thing to consider is how ripe the fruit is. If you freeze an underripe peach, it will still be underripe when you thaw it. If you freeze a perfectly ripe peach, that flavor will be preserved for a long time in the freezer. There are a few things to look for when choosing a ripe peach:

1. Vibrant color: The color of peaches varies from pale yellow to blush red to a bright sunset-esque orange. However, most of the peach should be on the redder side. If a peach is almost all pale yellow or orange, that’s a sign that it’s underripe. 
2. Slightly soft texture: Gently squeeze the peach at the top near the stem (you don’t want to squeeze so hard that you leave a bruise for the next person). The flesh of the peach should feel firm but have a little bit of give. 
3. Strong aroma: This is perhaps the most obvious sign that a peach is ripened. Take a good sniff—the peach should smell sweet and intoxicating. 
4. Blemish-free skin: If there are any bruises, blemishes, or missing patches of fuzzy coating on the outside of the peach, go ahead and move on. This could mean that the fruit is past its prime.

Why You Should Freeze Peaches

Freezing fruit is a great alternative to canning, especially since canning and preserving can be a lengthy process. We spoke with Bruce Ferree, CFS, IFT Fellow at Insight Food Safety Consulting. He gave us the low-down on how to freeze peaches safely, and how freezing affects the overall integrity of the fruit.

“If the product is well packaged to prevent moisture intrusion (ice crystal formulation) and it doesn’t thaw and refreeze many times, the shelf life in the freezer could be years,” says Ferree. (Though most food experts agree that you should use frozen fruit within a year of freezing it while it retains peak flavor.) That’s why packaging peaches properly is the first step in setting yourself up for long-term success.

How to Freeze Peaches

Freezing peaches can also affect the overall texture of the fruit once it’s thawed, especially when slow-freezing like most home kitchens use. Ferree notes that as the foods freeze, ice crystals form. If they are frozen fast, like in industrial flash freezers, the ice crystals tend to be smaller. If it’s slow, larger ice crystals form. Those large crystals can disrupt the expected texture of the food. If the food is being frozen to be used later for canning or cooking (like peach pie filling), changes in texture aren’t a major concern. However, if they are being frozen to be used for fresh consumption later on, that texture is important to take into account. There are two main ways we like to prepare peaches for freezing.

Slices

This is likely the easiest way to freeze peaches.

1. Pit the peaches and cut them into slices or wedges, as thick or thin as you like.
2. Blanch the fruit by dropping it into a large pot of boiling water for just a few seconds, then drain. 
3. Spray or brush each slice of peach with a thin coating of water.
4. Place each slice on parchment-lined sheet pans and transfer to the freezer.
5. Once they are frozen, transfer them to freezer-safe bags.

You're probably familiar with the technique of freezing foods individually before transferring them to a freezer bag so they don't clump. Ferree says that the industry does this with all of the fruits and vegetables that are sold commercially. This process takes anywhere from two to five minutes in industrial freezers, as opposed to as long as overnight in a home freezer. You might not know about coating each slice of fruit with water prior to freezing as Ferree suggests. This is to offset the possibility of large ice crystals forming on the surface of the fruit.

Should peaches be peeled for freezing? Peeling peaches before freezing is optional. If you prefer your peaches without the fuzz, go for it, but Ferree notes that leaving the skin on won’t have any major effect on the texture. The texture of the skin may change, but that is more a result of the conditions of freezing rather than having skin or not. “The skins are pretty resilient to large ice crystal formulation, so they shouldn’t change much when frozen,” he says. The process of freezing and thawing, in addition to air exposure in the freezer, will have more of an effect on the peach skin texture.

In Syrup

You can also freeze peaches in a jar, covered with sugar syrup. If you plan to use them for something sweet like peach pie, crumble, or sorbet (you’ll need frozen peaches for this last option anyway!), this is a great option. Here’s how to freeze peaches in syrup:

1. Start by making a simple syrup. The National Center for Home Food Preservation at The University of Georgia recommends using 40 percent sugar and 60 percent water. Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often to dissolve the sugar. Let the sugar solution cool completely. 
2. Place sliced peaches in a freezer-safe jar and cover with the cooled syrup. You’ll need about ½ cup of syrup for every pint container. 
3. Press the fruit down to ensure it is submerged in the syrup. Leave about ½-inch of space between the fruit and the top of the jar. (Food expands as it freezes, so you must allow some room. 
4. Place a small piece of crumbled water-resistant paper, such as wax paper, on top of the peaches to ensure they remain submerged. Seal the jar and freeze. As with frozen slices, these syrupy slices will last in the freezer for up to one year.