How to Freeze Chives & Preserve Them

Learning how to freeze chives can help reduce waste and enable you to enjoy their vibrant flavor for longer. Once frozen, they can be used in a variety of recipes!

Freezing chives is an excellent way to ensure you can enjoy this fresh, tangy, and crisp summer herb all year-round. Fresh chives typically go limp after three to four days once cut and stored in the fridge. Learning how to freeze chives while they’re still fresh locks in that taste and texture, and could not be easier to do. 

How to Freeze Chives

Chives can be frozen and still keep their original fresh flavor. However, if not frozen correctly, chives may lose their texture after thawing. There a few small and easy steps you can take to ensure your frozen chives will taste and look as fresh as they day you froze them, and here’s how:

1. Wash and chop your chives.
2. Add your chives to an ice cube tray. Fill the tray with either water or olive oil, depending on how you intend to use your frozen chives for cooking afterwards. 
3. Place in the freezer. Frozen chives will keep in the freezer for up to a year.

How to Use Frozen Chives

Freezing chives captures and stores their fresh, crisp and tangy flavor. You can simply remove the amount desired from the ice cube trays in the freezer and toss them into whatever you are cooking. You don’t even need to wait for them to thaw. 

Add frozen chives into stews, broths and casseroles. Or if you opted to freeze chives with olive oil, you can just pop a few out and add them to a dish of veggies before roasting them in the oven, or adding a couple over a bowl of hot boiled potatoes and letting their flavor melt over the dish.  Other great ideas for using chives include: 

• Adding them to mashed potatoes 
• Mixing into vegan Tzatziki
• In a sauce for vegan gnocchi 
• Cooked into a vegan shepherd’s pie 

Read more:

• Can You Freeze Olive Oil? Here’s The How and Why
• Chive Blossoms: Can You Eat Chive Flowers?
• Lobio Recipe: A Vegan Georgian Bean Stew

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Tags: Food Freezing Guide Herbs Practical Tips