What vegetables are frozen at home 

Fresh fruits and vegetables are the most affordable source of trace elements and vitamins in the summer-autumn season. But unfortunately, after their maturation, most products from the garden lose their quality and become unsuitable for consumption. Many housewives try to preserve the harvest by canning. The method really allows you to store food for a long time, but after such processing there are no vitamins left at all. But how to maintain the quality and usefulness of vegetables at home? There is, perhaps, the only correct answer to this question: freeze them. Freezing vegetables for the winter at home allows you to create a storehouse of fresh, healthy and tasty products that will always be at hand in the winter. We will talk about what vegetables can be stored frozen and how to do it correctly later in the section.

Basic Freezing Rules

If the house has a spacious freezer, then, without a doubt, the best way to prepare vegetables for the winter is to freeze them. You can freeze various vegetables, subject to certain features of a particular product. But there are also general rules that you need to know and remember when harvesting any product by freezing:

• you can freeze only ripe, dense vegetables without damage;
• before freezing, the products are washed and dried so that no moisture remains on their surface at all. Otherwise, they will stick together during freezing;
• vegetables with rough and dense pulp or skin should be blanched beforehand by dipping them in boiling water for several minutes, then quickly cooling them with ice water;
• store food in tight sealed bags or containers. This will prevent the product from drying out during storage;
• at a temperature of 0…-8⁰Vegetables can be stored for up to 3 months. Temperature -8…-18⁰C allows you to store products throughout the year;
• it is better to freeze vegetables in portions of 250-300 g.

By following these simple rules, you will be able to freeze vegetables for the winter with high quality and store them for a long time without losing quality, taste and usefulness. At the same time, each individual type of product requires an individual approach, which we will try to describe below.

What vegetables can be frozen

Almost all vegetables from the garden can be frozen. The only exceptions are turnips, radishes and radishes. The easiest way to freeze root vegetables. For example, carrots and beets are peeled, washed and chopped. They can be cut into cubes or grated, tightly folded into a bag and frozen. Things are much more complicated with vegetables such as tomato, eggplant, cucumber and some other “delicate” foods.

Tomatoes

In any season, tomatoes are a welcome product on the table. They are widely used in the preparation of first and second courses, sauces, salads. You can freeze the vegetable whole, in slices or in the form of mashed potatoes. Only small tomatoes are frozen whole, large fruits must be cut into slices and laid out on a baking sheet. After freezing, the slices are folded into a sealed plastic bag.

An example of how to freeze tomatoes for the winter and how to use the product after that is shown in the video:

cucumbers

Using a technology similar to tomatoes, you can freeze cucumbers. This vegetable is cut into small slices or cubes, grated and evenly, tightly placed in a plastic container, and then frozen. The vegetable can be stored in this state for no more than 6 months. You can use the product, including for the preparation of salads, okroshka.

Three different ways to freeze cucumbers are demonstrated in the video:

Bell pepper

Sweet Bulgarian pepper varieties can be frozen for the winter in several ways. The choice of one or another method depends on the subsequent purpose of the product. For example, for subsequent stuffing, the vegetable is washed, seeds are removed from it, making a characteristic incision from above. The vegetables peeled in this way are folded one to one and sent to the freezer. Of course, such a “matryoshka” will take up a lot of space in the freezer, but stuffed peppers prepared from it will be not only tasty, healthy, but also very cheap. Having made such a preparation, it will no longer be necessary to buy pepper in the winter at a high cost for stuffing.

Chopped frozen peppers can be used to prepare vegetable stews, salads and other dishes. In this case, the vegetable is cut into cubes or oblong slices and laid out in containers, bags, and then frozen.

Eggplant

Before freezing eggplants, they must be blanched for 5-10 minutes, dried and cut into cubes or slices.

Green peas and milky corn

Green peas and immature corn grains are usually frozen in bulk. To do this, the product is scattered in a thin layer on a baking sheet, which is placed in the freezer. After freezing, the product is poured into a plastic bag and sent to the freezer for further storage.

Cabbage

Different types of cabbage are frozen in different ways:

• The most famous white cabbage is simply chopped and laid out in small portions in bags.
• Cauliflower is usually blanched. Selected inflorescences are dipped for 3 minutes in boiling water with the addition of lemon juice. Blanched pieces of cauliflower are dried with a paper towel, then laid out in plastic bags and placed in the freezer.
• Before freezing, broccoli is divided into inflorescences, washed, dried and laid out in containers, bags.
• Brussels sprouts are blanched for 2-3 minutes, then dried and laid out on a flat dish for freezing in bulk. The frozen product is poured into a bag.

More often, it is the “tender” types of cabbage that are stored in freezers: Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli. White cabbage is perfectly stored in cool conditions without canning and freezing for a long period of time. However, in the absence of the necessary storage conditions, you can resort to the method described above.

Zucchini, squash, pumpkin

All these vegetables are cleaned before freezing: the skin and seeds are removed. The pulp is cut into cubes or slices, blanched for 10-15 minutes, then cooled, dried and packed in bags, containers.

String beans

This type of product is quite easy to freeze. To do this, rinse the pods and cut them into pieces, 2-3 cm long. In this form, the beans are poured into a plastic bag and sent to the freezer.

In winter, you can store not only certain types of vegetables, but also their mixtures. It is convenient to use, since all vegetables are in a certain amount and half-cooked. To prepare the dish, you only need to pour the finished vegetable mixture into the pan and stew or fry it.

Freeze Vegetable Mix Recipes

With your own hands at home, you can prepare a mixture similar to that offered to the buyer on store shelves. Only it will be many times more useful, tastier and, of course, cheaper.

Beginners and experienced housewives may be interested in the following recipes for freezing:

Paprikash

This name hides a mixture of vegetables, consisting of sweet peppers, zucchini, tomatoes and green beans. Before freezing, all ingredients must be chopped and blanched, then spread out in a thin layer on a baking sheet, frozen and packaged in bags, after mixing all the vegetables.

Village vegetables

This mixture is used for frying and stewing. It is based on the use of potatoes, which are peeled, washed, cut into cubes. Complementing potatoes in this mixture are green beans, broccoli, corn, sweet peppers and carrots. All ingredients, except for broccoli, are recommended to be blanched for 10-15 minutes before freezing. During cooking, it is recommended to add fresh onions to the vegetable mixture.

Lecho

Frozen lecho consists of tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, sweet bell peppers and onions. All ingredients are blanched and cut into cubes before freezing.

Mix “Spring”

Brussels sprouts, broccoli and Chinese cabbage are used to prepare the “Spring” mixture, as well as potatoes, peas, carrots and onions.

Hawaiian blend

This vegetable platter combines corn with green peas, sweet bell peppers and rice. It is worth noting that for the preparation of the “Hawaiian mixture” rice must first be cooked until half cooked.

All of these mixtures can be steamed or pan-cooked with a small amount of oil. It is also convenient that the previously prepared mixture does not need to be defrosted beforehand. This speeds up the process of preparing healthy and tasty food.

Surprisingly, you can freeze not only vegetable mixtures for cooking second courses, but also mixtures for making soups. So, a borscht recipe is popular, in which beets, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, onions and potatoes are frozen at the same time. The crushed frozen ingredients need only be added to the broth and wait for them to be ready.

Conclusion

Thus, freezing vegetables for the winter at home is not only useful, but also very convenient. After all, there is nothing easier than when you come home from work to cook dinner from already peeled, chopped and semi-annual vegetables. Frozen vegetables can be a godsend for mothers who care about the health of their student children who are somewhere far away, because even a schoolboy can cook borscht according to the above recipe. Having worked once in the summer season, when the garden is full of vegetables, you can make a huge supply of food and vitamins for the entire winter season for yourself and your loved ones. The only limitation for freezing fresh food is the size of the freezer.