Vegan Practically

I love frozen fruit and today I am just going to sing its praises. Part of the purpose of the blog is to try to offer a gentle nudge to people who might be open to introducing more vegan foods into their lives but don’t know where to start. It’s not a secret that fresh food is not always accessible to everyone. While it may be abundant in the produce section of the grocery store, it’s not cheap. We’ve all been experiencing sticker shock these days. Fresh fruit is among the things that have climbed steadily in price lately.

My favourite apples are now $3.99 a pound — I find that expense difficult to justify. A reasonable, even modest, bunch of grapes typically comes to $10-12, and you’re not sure they’ll be good. Mangoes, my favourite fruit, range in price from $1.29 each to over $2. And then it might or might not be good once you cut it open. Finding the balance between reasonable cost, the right amount of ripeness for how many days you need it to last, and the risk of making a bad pick can sometimes seem elusive, even to those who experience the privilege of choice (which not everyone has).

Enter frozen fruit. I didn’t used to search out frozen fruit, other than maybe for smoothies. But once I decided to give it an honest try, I found lots to love. Here’s what frozen fruit has going for it:

1. It’s cheaper than fresh for the amount you get. I mean not just a little bit, either. I don’t know how many mangoes are in a $4.99 bag of frozen mango chunks, but it’s a lot more than three or four.
2. It’s already prepped and ready to go. No peeling, cleaning, de-seeding, or slicing required.
3. Related — it’s perfect for smoothies because it’s frozen.
4. Easy to defrost. You don’t want to eat something frozen right now, you say? Fear not. You can set some aside overnight in the fridge and it’ll be ready to go in the morning. Or you can throw some in a microwave safe bowl and nuke it on a low power level for a minute or two. Or, if you’re using it for oatmeal, you can just put it right in with the oatmeal while it cooks. I do this all the time and it’s perfect.
5. It doesn’t spoil! This alone is a huge plus. I live alone and I find it hard to fit grocery shopping into my week sometimes. This means that even when I run out of fresh stuff, I have the frozen to fall back on.
6. Related — you can take just what you need and know that the rest will stay good in the freezer until you’re ready to use it.
7. Related — it’s always just the right ripeness.
8. It’s great for things like compotes, where you’re going to want to cook it a bit anyway. I have sometimes put some frozen blueberries on the stove with a bit of sugar and cooked it up as a topping for pancakes. Delicious.
9. You can get mixes that have multiple fruits in them.
10. All the kinds are the same price. I don’t even know how that works. Same-sized bag. Whether you’re getting mangoes or blueberries or cherries or peaches or strawberries or avocados (yes!), they’re always the same price. When one goes on sale, they all go on sale.
11. Mostly it retains its nutrients, so you’re getting the benefits of fruit even when it’s frozen.

That’s a pretty good list of good things about frozen fruit. I get that it’s not exactly the same as fresh. This comes down mostly to texture. Frozen blueberries get kind of mushy, so you need to think about whether to use them over fresh in stuff like baking, which they’ll bleed more colour into than fresh. I haven’t ventured into things like frozen apples because I love the crunch of a fresh apple.

My approach is to keep a combination of fresh and frozen fruits around. My way of using them is pretty basic — in cereal, on their own as snacks (with frozen, I make a little fruit salad), in smoothies, on pancakes. Given that, I don’t have a lot of fancy recipe suggestions or anything today. But that’s the thing about fruit, whether frozen or not: it’s miraculously wonderful as is. And it’s vegan!

Bon appétit!