Eating fruits is good for our health. One particularly healthy and versatile fruit is kiwi. It is eaten alongside several meals and can be used as an ingredient in smoothies and salads. The kiwi’s seed is safe to eat and also supplies the body with some nutrients. If you’re trying to create a diet rich in vitamin C, you can’t leave out the kiwi fruit. Kiwi is packed with lots of vitamin C, and when compared with other fruits, it has the highest vitamin C content.
With such a high level of vitamin C present in the fruit, there’s a lot to be benefited. Eating kiwi can help to combat colds and cough. It also serves as a potent antioxidant and helps to fortify our body’s immunity. People who have trouble sleeping can also benefit from eating kiwi. Kiwi has properties – like serotonin – that assist in combating sleep-related conditions.
If you’ve stocked up on kiwi, or bought more of it than you need, you’ll have to find a way to preserve it – considering how much benefits kiwi has, I believe that wastage shouldn’t be an option.
Since freezing helps preserve so many foods, you may be wondering: can you freeze kiwi? Yes, you can freeze kiwi. Although fresh kiwi can be left out on the countertop for about 3 days, you’ll need to use freezing if you want to preserve it beyond that time. Frozen kiwi fruit can last for up to 12 months!
With that in mind, it’s safe to say that when it comes to preservation of kiwi fruit, freezing trumps refrigeration and shelf storage.
Freezing Kiwi
Kiwi has so many benefits and uses, hence it shouldn’t be wasted. If you ever have the fruit in excess, it is much better to freeze it than to waste it. Even if you don’t want to eat the kiwi fruit raw, you can use it as an ingredient in other recipes that you enjoy.
The 12 months of preservation provided through freezing the fruit is quite enough time to finish the kiwi you have in storage. Do not keep the kiwi frozen beyond this time; doing so will cause the kiwi to lose most of its quality.
Refrigeration is also a good way to preserve kiwi fruit. It safely keeps kiwi for almost a week. If you don’t have so many kiwis to preserve, and you’ll be eating it soon, you can choose refrigeration over freezing. However, if you’re hoping to preserve the kiwi beyond a week, you’ll just have to freeze it.
How to Freeze Kiwi
There are some things to consider when you want to freeze your kiwi fruits. Correctly freezing the fruits will ensure that their properties are preserved for the longest possible time.
Step 1: Peel the Kiwi and Slice it
Instead of placing the whole kiwi fruits along with their skin in the freezer, you’ll need to peel them first. The process of peeling kiwi is quite simple and straightforward. Grab your knife and carefully peel off the kiwi’s skin without wasting much of its flesh. Once the skin is peeled off, go ahead to slice the kiwi – you may also dice it if you’ll be using it in a smoothie or fruit salad.
Step 2: Line the Container with Baking Paper
Grab the dish you want to spread the kiwi slices on and line it with some baking paper. If you do not have any baking paper at home you may also use a freezer-safe silicone mat. If you place the kiwi slices directly on a cookie sheet, or any other tray, without first lining it, the fruit slices will end up sticking to the tray.
So, to make things easier for you after freezing your kiwi, line the cookie sheet with some freezer-safe silicone mat or baking paper.
Step 3: Spread the Kiwi Slices Flat on the Dish
As you put the individual kiwi slices in the lined dish, make sure that there’s sufficient space between each slice of the fruit. If the kiwi slices are stacked on top of each other, they’ll end up sticking together inside the freezer and give you a hard time when you want to make use of them.
To make things even easier, feel free to rub each kiwi slice with sugar. The sugar rubbed on the kiwi slices makes them to last longer without losing much of their original quality. However, if you don’t want extra sugar with your fruit, you can skip this step.
Step 4: Freeze the Kiwi Slices on the Dish and Transfer into Freezer-Safe Bag Later
Once the kiwi slices are satisfactorily arranged on the dish, place them inside the freezer to freeze completely. After he fruit slices are fully frozen, remove them from the dish and transfer them into a resealable freezer-safe bag.
I personally like to write the present date on the freezer-safe bag before putting it in the freezer. Doing that helps me to keep track of how much time the kiwi slices have spent in the freezer.
How to Defrost Frozen Kiwi
When it’s time to make your kiwi-rich smoothie or fruit salad, you’ll need to remove the frozen slices from inside the freezer and thaw them. There are different approaches to defrosting frozen kiwi.
First off, you can thaw the frozen kiwi by placing and leaving it in cold water. The idea here is that the higher temperature of the water causes heat transfer when it comes in contact with the lower temperature of the frozen kiwi. After some hours of sitting in a bowl of water, the kiwi will be thawed completely.
Another method of defrosting frozen kiwi is by placing it in the fridge overnight. Thawing through refrigeration takes many hours and doing it overnight saves you from the stress of actively waiting.
Lastly, you may not have to bother with thawing the frozen kiwi. If you’ll be using it in a smoothie you can just toss it straight into the blender, along with other ingredients.