Jackfruit isn’t one of those food items that you can just find in any store around you. Although more people now purchase jackfruit, it still isn’t widely available. For this reason, jackfruit can be considered as somewhat precious. If you know that you’ll be eating lots of jackfruit in the days or weeks to come (maybe because of a diet you’re currently on), you might to consider buying it in bulk from a store that has it.
Now, since jackfruit is a perishable item, you can’t buy it in bulk without thinking of preservation. When it comes to effectively preserving jackfruit for a long period of time, it is best to use freezing.
So, can you freeze jackfruit? Yes, you can safely freeze jackfruit. The state of the jackfruit – if it’s processed or uncooked – will affect the freezing process. Instead of storing your jackfruit whole, it is a lot more effective and simpler to store it in cut up slices. With the jackfruit cut to pieces and properly wrapped, you can keep it frozen in the freezer for up to 2 months.
There are a couple of relevant tips you should know when you want to freeze your jackfruit. We have done our research and compiled the best way to go about freezing jackfruit. Keep on reading to know more on how you can effectively preserve jackfruit and prevent wastage.
Freezing Jackfruit
Jackfruit can be in different forms like cooked jackfruit, raw jackfruit, canned jackfruit, and the likes. However, regardless of what state your jackfruit is in, it can be safely and effectively frozen for use on a later date. When you have jackfruit in bulk you cannot consider leaving it unpreserved – it has a time limit before it starts going bad.
As I mentioned earlier, freezing a whole jackfruit isn’t very effective. It is much better to cut the jackfruit into smaller portions and then keep in the freezer till it’s needed. Besides, storing the whole jackfruit without cutting into smaller bits will take up a lot of freezer space. Cutting it down to bits will help manage the available space in the freezer.
Considering how important it is to cut up the jackfruit before freezing, I’d like to highlight a few easy steps for successfully cutting your jackfruit.
How to Cut Open a Jackfruit
Jackfruits are pretty large and take up a whole lot of freezer space. With a sharp knife in hand, here are some steps on how to cut jack fruit:
- Hold the knife firmly and begin cutting through the middle of the jackfruit. With a significant amount of force, you should have cut your way through the mid-section of the jackfruit in no time.
- Take each half of the jackfruit, sit them on the freshly opened face, and then cut again in half through the middle.
- After that, slice each of the halves into two equal pieces.
- The inner part of the jackfruit contains a whitish core with yellow arils secured together by rags.
- Take out the jackfruit’s seeds and arils and dispose of the peel and core.
Now that you’ve cut the jackfruit to smaller bits and secured the seeds and arils, we can move on to preservation through freezing.
How to Freeze Jackfruit
Before discussing the steps, I’d like to advise you not to freeze jackfruit arils together. This is because failure to freeze them independently will cause the arils to stick together and form a larger cluster of arils that will be hard to separate once frozen. Follow these steps to properly freeze your jackfruit:
- Spread out a wide piece of baking sheet and line its surface with parchment paper.
- Next, lay the arils of the jackfruit on the baking sheet and make sure that they aren’t stacked up on one another
- Put the baking sheet with the arils on top inside the freezer for about 2 hours till they’re all thoroughly frozen.
- Once the individual arils have been properly frozen, take them all out of the freezer and get a plastic container bag. To prevent the individual arils from sticking together and forming one large cluster, lay the plastic bag on its side and make sure that the arils aren’t stacked up on each other.
- Store the bag of jackfruit in a safe freezer compartment where you won’t be keeping other heavy items.
Can You Freeze Jackfruit Seeds?
Before you place your jackfruit seeds in the freezer, there are some things you should consider. For instance, you’ll need to remove the white-colored casing around the seeds – that casing is not edible, hence it has to go.
When you want to remove the shells around the jackfruit seeds, you can take different approaches. You can cut the top section away and then proceed to peel of the shell. The seeds may also be boiled in hot water for 1/3rd of an hour and then have the casing peeled away.
After removing the seed’s shell successfully, put the seeds in a plastic container bag and paced it in the freezer to get frozen. Instead of putting all the seeds together in one bag, it is much better to separate them into different bags containing portions of seed that can be finished at once.
Can You Freeze Cooked Jackfruit?
Yes, you can freeze cooked jackfruit. When you’re ready to freeze the cooked jackfruit, put it in a plastic container bag and seal it in. Before sealing the plastic bag, vacuum the air within the bag and make sure the jackfruit is spread out flat.
How to Know if Jackfruit is Bad?
After the jackfruit has stayed too long in the freezer, it can start going bad. There are signs to look out for when you want to know the state of your jackfruit. Spoiled jackfruit has a soggy and watery texture with dark colored spots on its body.
When touched, the jackfruit may feel slimy. At this point, it is best to toss the jackfruit in the trash. Make sure you write the date on the body of the freezer-safe bag so that you can keep track of how long the jackfruit has been frozen for.