Strawberry season can provide a lot of berries in a very short period of time. Learn how to preserve strawberries to enjoy all year long.

At any given time we have at least 100-300 strawberry plants in our garden. This gives us tons of berries to process in the spring and early summer!

Even though we eat our fair share, strawberries don’t have a long shelf life, so once they have ripened you don’t have too long to either eat them or preserve them.

Even if you don’t grow you own, maybe you got a good deal at the market or took a trip to a Pick Your Own strawberry patch and now you have a ton of berries to use up.

So how do you preserve strawberries? Let’s take a look.

 

 

How to Preserve Strawberries- 6 Different Ways!

✅ Ready to take control of your food source and preserve more? Check out my Food Preservation Planner to help you plan and preserve more food this year!

 

Freeze

My preferred way to preserve strawberries is to freeze them.

This is a no-fuss, easy way to preserve strawberries that’s quick and I think gives one of the best outcomes.

Freezing strawberries is easy, just follow these steps:

• Gently wash your strawberries
• Remove the green top and either leave whole or slice
• Place them in a freezer bag and seal well
• Freeze!

It’s that easy. I usually do a mix of whole and sliced.

Like all methods of preserving, berries will get a bit squishy upon defrosting, but you can use frozen strawberries to make jams, sauces, syrup, or stir into your oatmeal!

 

 

Preserves & Jam

We also never go a year without putting up a few batches of strawberry preserves or jam.

For preserves all you need is berries, sugar, and lemon juice. For jam you’d also need pectin.

You can find my easy strawberry preserves recipe here- and I have even made it with frozen strawberries!

 

 

Dehydrating

Dried strawberries are also a great way to preserve strawberries. And all you need for that is an electric dehydrator!

Slice your strawberries about 1/4 inches thick. Lay them on your dehydrator trays in a single layer.

Dry at 135F until they are leathery and crispy. This might take anywhere from 7 hours to 15 hours depending on the humidity and airflow in your dehydrator.

I highly recommend the Excalibur Dehydrator r- or you can check out my Dehydrator Buying Guide Here

Dehydrated strawberries are great in yogurt, cereal, and just for snack!

 

 

Fruit Leather

If you’d like to take dehydrating a step father you can make fruit leather with your strawberries!

Kids especially love fruit leather- and parents love it cause it’s a sugar free treat that seems like a dessert!

All you do is puree you strawberries- no sugar needed!

Place parchment paper or special mats on your dehydrator trays and then spread a layer of puree on the mat. Try to keep the edges thicker than the center so that it dries more evenly.

Dry at 135 until dry and pliable. Rotating the trays can speed up drying though 6 hours is about average. 

 

 

Freeze Drying

Now, not everyone has a freeze dryer, but it’s still a great option for preserving strawberries!

Freeze drying allows you to preserve strawberries that retain most of their nutritional value and lasts much longer than any other preservation  method- up to 25 years in some cases.

You can even make freeze dried strawberry powder to add to so many things like cakes, muffins, smoothies, vinaigrettes, ice cream or more!

HarvestRight makes a line of Home Freeze Dryers that work quite well for preserving all kinds of foods.

 

 

Canning

And lastly, I am not a super big fan of canning strawberries, but it can be done. I am not crazy about the texture of canned berries, and for the effort I much prefer to freeze.

But with just a little sugar, berries and maybe some citric acid or lemon juice you can preserve strawberries using a water bath canner.

If you’d like to learn more about canning strawberries, you can find the instructions on Pick Your Own.

 

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