terowan, I haven't tried it yet but I'm about to. I met an old gentleman who gave me a tree and some cuttings last year. He says that the peels and mashes them with honey and freezes them in small containers or he says you can use sugar. He removes them from the freezes and eat them for dessert. Last weekend I drove over and visited he tree. The figs are large and nice looking but rather bland on taste. I brought some home with me, ate a few and decided to try his approach. I had them in the fridge for a couple of days and gave them a taste test with a little sugar on them and them were slightly better than fresh off the tree. I put the balance in the freeze and will thaw them out in a day or so and taste them again. I want to see what freezing does to the texture as I doubt that the taste will improve. I think a good naturally sweet would would be good froozen and thawed without any additives.
"gene"

I have a few bags in the freezer at the moment, mostly brown turkey. when thawed they tend to go mushy and ooze a sweet syrup. I have eaten them straight from the freezer on a warm day and I have also thawed them and then dried them. The result is a very rich sticky dark brown fig that has flavor a bit like a top quality date. Possibly they would be good in a few recipes but I haven't experimented.

David

gene, I know this has potential. I just talked with a grower on the phone and he has done it for years, enjoying his figs in another way other than dried during the off season. He says he likes them half thawed and still crunchy. I have done the same with muscadines and they are great in the winter. By the way, Happy Birthday!

David, That sounds great.

Thanks,
Tim

First of all, thanks for the birthday wish. I plan to remove my figs from the freezer at lunch and put in fridge. Hopefully I'll get to taste them tonight. I also put muscadines in the freezer. I have at least 5 gallon zip lock bags full. I take them out to thaw and then eat them or if I'm in a hurry, I pop them in the micro wave for a few seconds to soften. I also had an abundance of red table grapes so I froze those and will give them a try later. For the last 4 or 5 years we've been freezing blueberries which I find are a great snack frozen. I just grab a handful and pop them in my mouth or drop them in a bowl of cereal. I keep you posted on the outcome with the figs.
"gene"

Although it will be years before I get enough figs to do it, I plan to freeze them as they ripen, and when I get 5 lbs or so, I'm going to make wine!! Fig wine!! Freezing breaks down the pulp, and they ferment much easier!!

Until the day I get that many, I'll be happy with that ice creamish desert! Sounds Delish!!
Suzi

I never froze Figs but I Froze dates to stop from getting over ripe. Like Red crunchy dates turned in while into black soft date. Freezing prevents that from happening.I love dates and I buy it by Sabata. I will try to freeze Figs and see how it goes. If successful I would freeze Apricot.

I cut off the peels, put them in a zip lock bag and freeze them. Later they are thawed and made into jam. I have to do it this way or I never have them ripe at one time to get enough for jam.

Eating unpeeled figs thawed sounds like a tasty snack--I wonder why it never occurred to me? Will have to try it this year!

Girlbug,

Do you just freeze the figs as they are, or do you put anything like lemon juice over them so they will freeze better?

Thanks,

Vivian

Alton Brown did a show about freezing strawberries. His suggestion was to let them cool down in the fridge, then freeze them with dry ice. Since the berries were already cooled and the dry ice froze them more quickly than if they were in the freezer, the ice crystals which formed were smaller and prevented the berries from turning to much. I haven't searched, but a clip of the show might be found on youtube.

Freezing strawberries starts at about 3 minutes into the video

Here is a link that might be useful: Alton Brown

I have a theory: Quick and Easy or it won't happen for very long! bjs496 thanks for the video. I sat there eating my frozen fresh strawberries straight from my organic garden, while watching it and remembering how I just threw them in a freezer baggy and how good they taste, I said his way is too hard. By the way, I did the same with my Saint Anthony figs. No peeling, no washing, just throw them in and freeze. They taste fantastic! It seemed like a fig popsicle. The key is eat them half thawed. True for blueberries, strawberries whatever. This is a great way to preserve fruit and eat it out of season.

I freeze them straight, no lemon juice. They never stay in the freezer for longer than a month before I pull them out for jamming, so for longer term storage I don't know.

Sorry I'm so late in reporting back on my freezing experiment but sometime life gets in the way of our wants. A couple of days ago I removed the peeled and frozen Brown Turkeys from the freezer and put them in the fridge to defrost. That night after supper I took them out and ate them as a dessert. They were good, but of course I like cold figs. They tasted better than when they were first picked, the flavor had been enhanced. I can say that when I have more figs than I can eat fresh, I will be putting some aside in the freezer to eat.
"gene"

I freeze figs (no name variety, large green) with the following method which grew out of desperation to stay ahead of the crows. I harvest the figs when they have swelled and start to soften slightly--about 12-24 hours from being ripe. Let them continue to ripen for 12-24 hours on the counter. Cut 1/4 inch off the stem end and cut the figs in half. Place about 1/8 inch of fruity syrup in the bottom of a baking dish and place the figs cut side down in the syrup first and then turn them over to bake. My favorite syrup is (a) creme de cassis and a little lemonade or limeade concentrate or (b) a combination of fruity liqueur (raspberry) and black currant nectar. I bake the figs at 425 for 35 minutes. Once cooled, pour them into a pint canning jar and freeze, leaving headroom to expand and don't tighten the lid down until they have frozen solid. They defrost perfectly in a microwave. Experiment with the syrup--balsamic vinegar glaze also adds a kick.

I freeze figs (no name variety, large green) with the following method which grew out of desperation to stay ahead of the crows. I harvest the figs when they have swelled and start to soften slightly--about 12-24 hours from being ripe. Let them continue to ripen for 12-24 hours on the counter. Cut 1/4 inch off the stem end and cut the figs in half. Place about 1/8 inch of fruity syrup in the bottom of a baking dish and place the figs cut side down in the syrup first and then turn them over to bake. My favorite syrup is (a) creme de cassis and a little lemonade or limeade concentrate or (b) a combination of fruity liqueur (raspberry) and black currant nectar. I bake the figs at 425 for 35 minutes. Once cooled, pour them into a pint canning jar and freeze, leaving headroom to expand and don't tighten the lid down until they have frozen solid. They defrost perfectly in a microwave. Experiment with the syrup--balsamic vinegar glaze also adds a kick.

I did that last year because I couldn't keep up with my tree's production and I had to throw them out. When they defrosted they were a mushy mess, tried to make them into jam and the taste and appearance was awful.

Does anybody know of a different method than freezing to long term store them?

Well it is traditional to dry figs...but I prefer the taste and texture of fresh, and freezing is the closest you can get to that when preserving.

Suzi - Did you ever make your fig wine? How did it taste?

This thread is old, but here's an idea: freeze fresh figs whole and make yonanas. Google yonanas machine. The combination of figs and bananas makes an amazing soft serve "ice cream." You could also try blending frozen figs and bananas together in the food processor and then freezing the ice cream for storage. I have a Yonanas machine so I haven't tried the latter.

Is it imperative to use heavy duty freezer bags to prevent the figs going mushy/freezer burn etc.? Im in New Zealand and have five trees starting to produce right now.

Are you in tropical NZ or the part that gets freezes, and what figs do you have? There was a grower there who used to upload videos but he hasn't been active in recent years.

Im in the north which doesnt get snow etc like the south but the whole country has high summer temperatures right now. i want to ask too about successfully storing the dried figs semi long term. i keep forgetting the names of the varieties....purple with thin skin and a bit later variety with thicker green skin. The trees are on my rental property....itd be a coincedence if the other guy also lived here...no we aint that small really ha.