My squash plants have started blooming, but so far only male flowers. I hate to see them go to waste, so I've been harvesting them to use in salad, soup, or best of all, stuffed with cream cheese and pan fried!
I'm wanting to make squash blossom soup, but I don't have a substantial enough daily harvest to get enough blossoms in a day for the recipe, so I've been storing them in the fridge. Last year when I was researching squash blossom recipes, I came across tons of people saying they only lasted a day once harvested, so you needed to pick and eat them right away. Then I found someone who said she'd bought some at a farmer's market, and the seller told her if she couldn't use them right away to store them in the fridge in a bag filled with air. I tried it, and it works extremely well.
Clean the squash blossoms by removing the sepals and stamen, and rinsing gently under cool running water. Shake off excess water and place the blossoms in a ziploc bag. Close the bag most of the way, and then blow air into it to puff it up. Seal, and you can store your blossoms for up to 5-7 days (the petals do deteriorate some toward the end of this time, but are still usable for things like soup where their appearance is less critical.
These blossoms were harvested 3 days ago, and are still fresh enough to use for pretty much any recipe.
Replies
Nice tip, Leanne, thank you.
Thank you for sharing this tip! :)
Fabulous - thanks for the tip!