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Freezing then canning apples? #920594

Asked October 25, 2025, 10:41 AM EDT

I just had a canning question.. is it safe to freeze apples to later hot water bath can them? I found the instructions for freezing on the NCHP website, the recipe I was going to can was this: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/pickle/chutneys/apple-chutney/ Thanks!

Union County Ohio

Expert Response


Thank you for your question. In theory this seems like it should work, however I would not recommend it. The quality/texture of the apples would change too much from the freezing process.

As an example, there are safe guidelines to can previously frozen tomatoes...
but only in fully cooked recipes such as crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce AND you need to fully thaw the tomatoes and measure both the tomato water from thawing and tomato solids for your recipe. While apples may not give off as much water, they would have significant texture changes from freezing that would not be beneficial in the chutney.
Kate Shumaker, MS, RD, LD Ohio State University Extension, Holmes County 111 East Jackson Street Millersburg, OH 44654 Phone: 330-674-3015 http://holmes.osu.edu shumaker.68@osu.edu Replied October 28, 2025, 11:00 AM EDT

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