Frozen vegetables

Frozen vegetables are vegetables that have had their temperature reduced and maintained to below their freezing point for the purpose of storage and transportation (often for far longer than their natural shelf life would permit) until they are ready to be eaten. They may be commercially packaged or frozen at home. A wide range of frozen vegetables are sold in supermarkets.

Examples of frozen vegetables which can be found in supermarkets include spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, sweetcorn, yam (in Asia) either packaged as a single ingredient or as mixtures. There are occasions when frozen vegetables are mixed with other food types, such as pasta or cheese. Frozen fruits are produced using a very similar approach.

Some popular brands include Birds Eye and Green Giant, as well as supermarkets' 'store brand' items.

Frozen vegetables have some advantages over fresh ones, in that they are available when the fresh counterpart is out-of-season, they have a very long shelf life when kept in a freezer and that they often have been processed a step or more closer to eating (usually washed and cut, sometimes also seasoned). In many cases, they may be more economical to purchase than their fresh counterparts or are packaged while ripe. The fruit used for frozen fruit is overripe. Some use the terminology "spoiled" or "seconds".

The history of frozen fruits can date back to the Liao Dynasty of China, with the "frozen" pear being a classic delicacy eaten by the Khitan tribes in the Northeastern region of China.^[1] Modern frozen vegetables with the flash freezing technique was popularized by Clarence Birdseye in 1929.^[2]