Preserving blueberries

It’s blueberry season! Pretty soon, those yummy tart blueberries from the farmers markets will be gone, so I’ve been preserving mine.

I haven’t done it, but you could make freezer jam or even regular jam out of them.

If you have a food dehydrator, it takes a long time, but you can dry them for 10-20 hours at about 135 deg F and then store them in an airtight container. A quart of blueberries yielded about a pint and a half of dried berries for me.

This can be a little tricky because not all your blueberries will be the same size. I must admit, the biggest of the last batch took almost 24 hours, whereas the smaller ones took closer to 15 hours. This meant I stopped the dehydrator to check on them several times. If your experience is at all similar, you’ll probably want to do it overnight and going into a day you’re at home. I was pretty tired of checking every single blueberry by the time they were done, but they’re pretty tasty this way. Perhaps too tasty? I have to guard them as if they were tiny, wrinkled, semi-precious stones now.

Another method is freezing, which is the greener, more frugal option, as you’re not using any more electricity than you would be otherwise. Wash them with cool water and dry them off to prevent frost particles. Spread them on a cookie sheet, wax paper optional, and freeze them overnight. Hopefully you have room in your freezer.

Then put them in an airtight container. I plan to use a freezer bag, which I’ll wash out and reuse when I’m done. If you’re wondering why you freeze them on a cookie sheet, it’s so that they won’t stick together en masse and become a giant blueberry icicle. I suppose that could have its own appeal, but for my purposes, I’d rather be able to take them out individually.

The dried berries will go in yogurt and oatmeal, and the frozen ones may go in ice cream. Mmm, blueberry ice cream.

Happy summer eating, everyone.