What is Blanching?

Blanching

Reasons for Blanching

Blanching is helpful for many reasons:

1) Blanching is used for removing skins or loosening peels from fruits like tomatoes and peaches or nuts like almonds.

2) It is also used to eliminate harmful pesticides from the outer layer of fruits and vegetables, cooking will remove the pesticides from the peel before they leak into the meat.

3) It is used to maintain the bright color and crispness of vegetables like green beans and broccoli. This cooking process especially brings out and preserves the color green.

4) When you blanch some plants, like kale and collard greens, it tones down the bitter taste.

5) An efficient blanch also preserves the nutrients and flavor of foods, this process seals in rather than cooking out the nutrients.

6) The process also neutralizes the bacteria in fresh foods that could otherwise cause them to go bad.

Blanching is an essential step prior to freezing most fruits and vegetables for one or all of the above reasons.