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I love green onion and chives (chives are the skinny version of green onion). You get that fantastic green onion flavor without the beastly onion breath. Most people who grow green onion have more than they can eat at some point in the season.
Here’s a quick and easy way to preserve them. We enjoy our frozen, organic green onion all year long. Frozen green onion is ideal for use in soups or hot dishes and you don’t have to thaw before using.
How To Store and Freeze Green Onion:
1. Wash your green onions or chives in cold water.
2. Place onions on the counter and pat them dry with a paper towel to prevent freezer burn.
3. Using a sharp knife, finely dice all the green onions/chives and place them in tupperware with the lid or freezer bag. Fill to the top, but don’t pack them down. Pop ’em in the freezer and you’re done. In our family, we recycle plastic tubs from sour cream or cottage cheese :D.
Note: When using green onion, scrape what you need from the top and refreeze remaining onion right away.
Wow! This is awesome! I freeze my dill but didn’t know it works with green onion too. Thank you so much Natasha:) God bless you!
My pleasure Tatiana! I’m glad you found this post helpful, thanks for sharing!
I freeze the chopped green onions & chives on a cookie sheet. Once frozen, transfer to zip lock bag or container. They won’t stick together, easier to use.
That’s genius! Thank you for that great feedback.
I am pretty new to freezing foods, have been looking at different videos and such and a lot of them tell you to blanch your items before freezing, but on green onion tops I haven’t seen this. Everyone has just washed, cut, pat dried and straight out put in freezer. Do you not have to blanch this item?
No, if you blanch green onions, you’d probably turn them to mush. It’s best not to blanch green onions.
I’m going to freeze all my onion tops like this and save for mostly stocks.
How do you freeze the dill? I have dill heads – so many – some with yellow flowers, some with green seeds, and some with brown seeds. Do I just clip off the head and feeze them whole like that? Most of the dill leaves are yellowing and past their prime. We did use them in butter for potatoes and dips.
Thank You!
We normally freeze dill when it’s green and ripe. Just wash and dry the fresh green dill, next finely chop it, place it in the container from sour cream or freezer sealable bags :). We use it in the soups or over potatoes and other dishes.
Great tip. I do the same with my garden herbs such as parsley, dill, green onions, chives. I also do same thing with carrots (grated, easy to use for soups) and peppers (chopped).
I’ve never done that with parsley, but I should!! Then I could enjoy home grown parsley all year long. 🙂
We did this all the time with my Mom’s garden plentifulness.I love how easy it is to use – it’s already chopped, plus tastes just as fresh as though it were just picked from the garden.
I agree!! It keeps its freshness and it’s so handy to have it in the freezer. Organic green onion; yum! 🙂
Such a cool tip! Thanks Natasha.
You’re welcome. 🙂
Didn’t know about the chives or green onions. Thank you for that tip. I freeze basil as well, just wash, pat dry in paper towels, chop & into freezer bags. Does not go brown, or at least I haven’t experienced that.
You can also freeze basil. Coarsely chop basil leaves and in a food processor add olive oil (about 1 tablespoon) and pulse lightly until all the leaves are coated. Then spoon into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen you can transfer into ziploc bags. 1 square equals about 2 tablespoons fresh basil. You learn a lot on pinterest;))).
My mom also freezes cilantro and has no problem with it.
That’s so great! I’ve been wondering what to do with all my basil. Thank you!!
Vika how do you freeze cilantro? do you add oil too or just by itself….Thanks.
Just freeze it by itself.
I hope (lol) you know that there are two Hopes here… (: I was the original Hope, but hello to the other Hope. Welcome to the site (; Thanks for the great idea, Natasha. We always used freezer Ziploc bags, but I think it’d be easier to just toss them into a Darigold container (;
What an awesome idea. I could.never think you can freeze chives. Thught it would change its color to brown 🙂
Thanks, Natasha!
They are as green as the day you froze them 6 month ago:)
Hi Natasha,
What do you use the frozen green onions for? Can it be used in salads or just cooking/ frying?
I use frozen green onions in soups primarily, used in Olivie as well. Onion will get soggy when using in salads.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
so its like freezing dill and parsley. right? well my mom freezes dill.
Yes, just like that. Just try to get them as dry as possible after washing them to avoid freezer burn.
little things in life like this tip makes a difference in the kitchen. thanks!
You are welcome Angelina. I like to get the most out of the garden, if I can’t use them right now, than save them for later 🙂
Great idea! Is it easy to take out what you need when it’s frozen? Also, is it safe to freeze in sour cream/cottage cheese containers?
We been freezing them like that for couple years and never had any trouble. You can also put them in the freezer safe zip lock bag, suck all the air out using a straw.
Dill and parsley work great by freezing too!
Thanks for the tip Zina. We freeze dill but I might freeze parsley this year as well, since we have some in the garden.
OOO.. Need to start doing this for dill, we always end up having an abundance of dill 🙂
We still have planty of frozen dill from last year that still works great but I was out of frozen green onions.
Great idea Natasha:) I should do that.
We do same thing for dill and bell peppers 🙂