How to freeze green onions

Although many people freeze dill, parsley, cilantro, and other herbs, they often overlook freezing green onions. However, green onions can be frozen just as successfully. Start by selecting fresh bunches of green onions and washing and sorting them. Trim off any wilted tips, unsightly shoots, and the white part of the green feathers.

After preparing the onion feathers, thoroughly dry them with paper towels to remove excess moisture. Since green onions have a high water content and we will be using butter (which also contains liquid), it's best to eliminate excess water to avoid excessive freezing. Finally, slice the green onions to your desired size.

Before freezing, take the butter out of the refrigerator and let it soften at room temperature for a few hours. It should be soft but not melted. Avoid heating the butter in the oven or microwave, as we want the butter to remain solid but pliable. This method also works for olive oil.

Now, thoroughly mix the softened butter with the sliced green onions. Simply stir with a spoon, without whipping or trying to achieve a perfectly even distribution of onions in the butter. The mixture is now ready for freezing. There are several freezing methods you can choose from.

First Method: To make "sausage" or "loaf" from the resulting green creamy butter, wrap it in parchment paper or foil and place it in the freezer. In the end, you will get your pack of special creamy butter. Of course, you should only store it in the freezer. When needed, break off the required amount for your dish.

This method has its advantages: firstly, the freezing process is very quick (form and place it in the freezer); secondly, such a bundle takes up little space in the freezer, making it convenient to store. But there's one drawback: when you urgently need to separate a piece, you have to chip away at the frozen butter, which is not very convenient, to say the least, and it's difficult to estimate the size of the broken-off piece.

Second Method: It's very convenient to use ice cube trays for portioning. Spread the butter with onions in the compartments, place them in the freezer, and after freezing, remove the resulting cubes and pour them into a food container or storage bag. This is an excellent method: it's easy to take the required amount from the freezer. There's only one small downside: it's very difficult to clean the trays from the smell of oil and onions after using this method.

Third Method – my favorite method. It's very convenient to use candy boxes for freezing. More precisely, the trays in which candies are arranged. All my friends know that I need these trays, so they save them and bring them to me in unlimited quantities. First of all, it's convenient that the trays come in different sizes: small cells, like ice cube trays, and large ones, like the ones in my photo. This simplifies the process of selecting the necessary amount of frozen butter for cooking a dish.

Moreover, these trays don't need to be washed at all; you can use them once: freeze and discard.

So, place prepared green onion butter in the compartments of the tray. Smooth it out slightly with a spoon and put it in the freezer. After a few hours, you can confidently remove the trays, take out the resulting cubes/circles, and transfer them to a container for storage. With this portioned freezing, they will never stick together. Close the container tightly and place it in the freezer. That's how simple it is.

The question arises: why do we need such oil with green onions? Oh, I know a hundred ways to use it. The simplest one is suitable for working women, when you need to quickly and satisfyingly feed your family for dinner. Simply boil the potatoes, take out a couple of frozen pieces, and throw them on top of the potatoes. Voila! Hot, fragrant potato with butter and sprinkled with green onions is ready. This frozen topping is very good for making soups or sauces. And it also works great for baked fish, in the belly of which such butter-onion cubes were placed. In general, there are no limits to your imagination! Cook deliciously, simply and quickly!