Bulk Prepping Ginger

I have been in love with squeezable ginger paste since the pandemic started and that was the only ginger left in the market.  Still, there are some recipes that really should be done with fresh ginger.  It was only $1.99 a pound at 99 Ranch, so I bought a bag.  Minus the two tablespoons I actually needed, that's a lot of ginger in the fridge.

Becky at Acre Homestead on YouTube started doing this with garlic first.  When you grow over a hundred heads of garlic per year, you have to figure out how to preserve it.  She ran the peeled cloves through the processor, froze them in scooped pucks, and transferred them to a baggie for long term storage.  This past year, she tried it with ginger and it seemed to work.  I couldn't find the exact video; she posts every other day.  And I thought every third day was a lot!

When you grate ginger for a recipe, the tough fibers break down and leave the juicy pulp.  That's what the squeezable ginger is, plus some flavoring and preservatives.  My idea was to run the peeled ginger through the mini processor with a bit of lemon juice for preservative.  The squeeze bottle includes fructose, but I don't have any corn syrup at the moment.  I could have used honey, but these were going in the freezer, not the fridge, and didn't need it.  Besides, I mostly use fresh ginger in savory recipes.

I chose to portion the pulp as generous teaspoons because that's the kind of measurement I tend to work with.  If I generally used tablespoons, I would have put it in sandwich baggies and pressed it into 16 cells, like I do with leftover tomato paste.  That would have been faster, and it's great with the tomato paste to break off a scored chunk whenever I need it.  Another option is to freeze it in ice cube trays, but those would have been huge.

Peeling the ginger took the longest of the whole process.  I tried the spoon method for the first time, and it was about the same effort as a peeler.  Chop peeled pieces into manageable chunks and chuck in processor with a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.  Cover ears and run the processor until you get a chunky paste.  Then you scoop the pulp into desired portions on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet and freeze until firm, an hour or two.  Pop the pucks into a baggie and store in the freezer until needed.  Half an hour of work, plus dishes, for possibly a year of ginger.