If we consider various ways of harvesting vegetables for the winter, freezing is one of the most effective. If we compare vegetables that are stored all winter in cool rooms and frozen, then the nutritional and vitamin value of the latter will be much higher. So, for example, frozen beets will retain up to 90% of vitamins, compared to fresh root vegetables. The only limitation is that freezing must be primary, repeated freezing leads to the loss of almost all the beneficial properties of the vegetable.
In the event that the housewife does not have the opportunity to store fresh roots in the cellar or on the balcony, since they lose their juiciness in the heat, shrivel and wither, then freezing beets is a great way to preserve stocks until the next summer season.
All types of root vegetables are well suited for freezing, it can be either fresh or boiled, cut into cubes or strips, or fruits unchanged.
Many housewives wonder if boiled beets can be frozen to save cooking time. There is a special technology for freezing a boiled product:
After such processing and peeling of beets, depending on the final dish, housewives decide in what form you need to freeze:
For hot dishes, you can get a frozen chopped mixture and add it to soups or meat in this form, gradually bringing it to readiness during the cooking process. For cold snacks, semi-finished products must first be defrosted. If a boiled vegetable was subject to freezing, then the dish will turn out faster in time.
If there is no time for pre-processing of the root crop, you can make blanks from raw beets. To do this, you need to peel it and chop it in a blender or on a grater. It should be remembered that when frozen, fresh beets tend to turn pale and will not stain the dish brightly.
Another option for freezing is whole. The beets are thoroughly washed and, without cutting off the tail and tops, boiled in water with the addition of vinegar. After the vegetable is cooked, it must be cooled and frozen in its entirety, or cut as desired. Whole frozen vegetables cannot be chopped without first defrosting. Ice crystals form inside the beets when frozen, which disrupt the original shape of the vegetable. Slicing from such semi-finished products will turn out to be loose and will not keep their shape.
A little trick in the technology of freezing a semi-finished product: if the hostess wants the pieces of the frozen product not to stick together into one lump, you can prepare the mixture by laying the pieces on a tray in one layer. After keeping in the freezer for about 2-3 hours, the freeze is poured into a separate bag and then stored as usual. This is convenient for future reference.
In addition to the beets themselves, some housewives also freeze the tops, because, like any greenery, they contain useful vitamins and minerals. To freeze, the leaves must be thoroughly washed, dried, cut into small portions and put into small bags, which are then placed in the freezer for storage.
Beets frozen for the winter are a very convenient semi-finished product for the preparation of many delicious dishes... Simple secrets of harvesting root crops will help every housewife to feed the family healthy soups, salads or stews any time of the year.
Growing vegetables is not an easy process, but it is equally difficult to keep the harvest as long as possible. One of the root crops requiring special storage conditions is beets. Not every owner manages to keep it until spring. A simple way, tested and approved by housewives, is to freeze grated beets for the winter. In this form, useful and taste qualities, rich burgundy shade.
Winter is the time of the year when the body needs useful elements that are found in fresh vegetables and fruits. It is quite difficult to save the harvest without losses in order to use it for cooking. This is especially true for beets, which, even in cool conditions, quickly deteriorate - they become soft or dry out.
Through freezer it became possible to save root crops without losses. This storage method has many advantages:
The main thing to remember is that you should try to freeze the beets immediately after removing them from the beds. Even short-term storage will reduce the amount nutrients.
An important stage in the preparation of blanks is proper processing and preparation. Freezing beets for the winter at home can be done using different recipes... The easiest way is to send a pre-prepared vegetable to the freezer without prior heat treatment... Harvesting from a raw product is not very popular with housewives - when defrosting, the burgundy shade is significantly lost.
When starting to harvest a vegetable, you should remember a little trick - more delicious frozen winter beets. It is better to use early roots only fresh - for long-term storage, even in the freezer, they are of little use.
Before you send the root vegetables to the freezer, you will have to do simple process, without which you can not do - sorting. Remove soft or rotten vegetables immediately, and if dry spots are visible, use immediately for cooking. Carefully examine each root crop - if thin roots resembling hairs are visible on the surface, it is better not to use them for freezing, the raw materials are tough and tasteless. You should also not store vegetables that are too light - they have an insufficiently rich taste, which will almost disappear in the freezer.
Regardless of what kind of beets will be used for freezing, chopped on a grater or cut into cubes (cubes), it is better to store them in a plastic container. First, you need to make sure that the containers are designed for operation at sub-zero temperatures.
You can use plastic bags or containers for storage - they are compactly located in the freezer and take up little space. It is better to take a small container designed for one preparation of a dish. If you freeze a lot of raw materials, it will be difficult to take the amount of product required for borscht or salad.
The easiest way to harvest a root crop is to freeze it without preliminary heat treatment. There will be no particular difficulties here:
Send the prepared root vegetable to the freezer immediately after packing in a container, because even a short stay at room temperature can affect the quality of the product. The freezing of the beets is over, but if the container is large, it is better to stir up the straws or bars a little after an hour - this will not allow them to freeze into one lump.
Some housewives use not only root vegetables in their dishes, but also leaves, which can also be stocked up for the entire winter season. Freezing the tops is simple - rinse the greens thoroughly, let the water drain and lay them on a napkin. Try to remove moisture as much as possible, so dry the raw materials for an hour. Chop with a sharp knife, put in bags or containers, send to the freezer. Defrosting the tops is not recommended - it is better to add the required amount of raw materials to an almost finished dish.
Cooking a dish from a raw frozen root vegetable is quite long in time - you will need to defrost the raw materials, then boil or fry. The cooked product is much easier to use.
Step-by-step procurement boiled beets:
You can freeze not only grated or chopped beets, but also mashed potatoes. Usually they use such a preparation for borscht, but you can turn it into a tasty dish for the baby - send it to a saucepan and heat it over low heat, stirring it, until it boils. You can add a crushed apple, boiled potatoes, carrot.
Making beetroot puree is easy - boiled vegetables rub through a sieve or interrupt with a blender. You can grind it with a meat grinder, but such beets will have to be used only for borscht, after sending them to a pan with onions and carrots.
Freezing beets is not only a great way to preserve all the qualities of this vegetable, but also an opportunity to shorten the time for preparing dinner or lunch. Vinaigrette, herring under a fur coat, borscht, mashed potatoes - a small part of the delicious dishes that can be easily and time consuming to prepare from this wonderful and simple preparation.
Beetroot has long been one of the first places in cooking, cosmetology and folk medicine... This root vegetable rich in vitamins and minerals is directly associated with borscht and vinaigrette. It contains almost all B vitamins, as well as A, E, C and many minerals: potassium, sodium, phosphorus, chlorine, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, iron and zinc.
The uniqueness is that even after heat treatment, it retains all its benefits. In addition, boiled beets are absorbed by the body much better than raw beets. There are many recipes for delicious homemade beetroot products: canned borscht, salad, and so on. But is it possible to freeze grated beets for the winter in their original form without any additional processing? We will talk about this in detail.
Ingredients
Servings: - + 5
Per serving
Calories: 49 kcal
Proteins: 1.92 g
Fats: 0.11 g
Carbohydrates: 10.55 g
15 minutes. Video Recipe Print
We wash the beets, cut the tops. We leave the tail, otherwise it will lose too much juice during the cooking process.
Peel and grind the boiled and cooled vegetable. Can be cut into cubes, wedges, or simply grated as a video recipe. It depends on your preference. For convenience, divide the vegetable into several parts and cut each in a certain way.
We lay out the crushed workpiece in a plastic container or plastic bags. It is important to remove air from them in order to freeze the beets efficiently.
We send it to the freezer along with other blanks.
This version of the preparation is convenient because in the future the vegetable can be used in different ways, cutting it as required by the dish you have conceived. The only thing to remember is that it will have to be completely defrosted.
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Servings: 4
The convenience of this method is that it is not necessary to defrost the vegetable before use (cooking, frying, etc.).
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Servings: 5
With fresh vegetables sorted it out. Is it possible to freeze boiled beets and how to do it correctly, we will find out now.
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Servings: 1
It is better to harvest beets in small portions, as re-freezing is highly discouraged. After all, getting several servings of beets is not a problem, but reducing the amount, provided that the product is frozen in one mass, it will not work. If you have a lot of blanks in the freezer, then stick a label with the name of the vegetable and the date on the container with the beets. This will help you track storage times.
Home freezing can be stored for 3-4 months on average. But with a good camera and the correct preparation process, the period can be increased to 1 year. At the same time, do not forget that the longer the beets lie, the less vitamins and minerals it contains, and the taste deteriorates. The optimum temperature is -18 degrees. After a year, it is better to discard the vegetables.
Plain plastic bags are more often used. Their convenience is cheap and easily accessible. But for storage, special ones with a zip fastener are more suitable. They are durable, hermetically sealed, look neat and do not take up much space. Plastic containers are also suitable, both reusable and disposable. It is more convenient to sign them and move them around the camera during the search. the desired product or scheduled defrosting of the refrigerator.
Approaching the process with a soul, you can cook a lot healthy dishes with beets. And the blanks will become good helpers for the hostess, who strives to make the family's food useful and varied. After all, freezing vegetables is so easy!
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Frozen beets retain a maximum of vitamins and other nutrients. Such preparation saves the hostess time when preparing the first courses not only in winter, but also in summer. The advantage of the frozen product is also that you don't need to get your hands and dishes dirty again. It is enough to grate a lot of beets once, put them in bags and send them to the freezer. But at the same time, you need to know how to properly freeze beets for the winter.
A beet can be stored in a refrigerator or cellar for a long time, but despite this, housewives often freeze it. This saves the housewives' time on preparing the first courses and minimizes the amount of dirty dishes. When rubbing beets, the juice flies to the sides, getting on clothes and furniture. So why not grate a lot of vegetables at once and send the semi-finished product to the freezer?
It is worth immediately reassuring the housewives, who believe that there are no nutrients left in the frozen vegetable. With this method of storing vitamins and minerals are preserved in full.
Freezing beets is allowed raw and cooked.
In order for the product to retain useful substances, they adhere to the following recommendations:
For freezing, beet varieties with dark pulp should be taken. Vegetables should be fresh and firm.
Before freezing vegetables, the freezer box is freed from excess food, washed and dried. Packages with beets are tightly placed in a dry box.
If the refrigerator is equipped with the "Quick Freeze" function, then set it up for a couple of hours.
In this case, the vegetable is frozen quickly and the nutrients are preserved in it. If the refrigerator is not equipped with such a function, then the product is frozen at 10-15 degrees of frost. This temperature is considered optimal.
Plastic containers are often used to freeze chopped vegetables.
Ways to freeze beets at home
You can freeze the root crop different ways... It can be frozen whole, grated, diced, or cut into strips.
Fresh beets
Many housewives store fresh beets in the freezer, previously grated or cut with a knife:
- Young dark beets are washed with a brush, dried with a paper towel and peeled.
- Rub the root vegetable on a grater or cut into strips.
- Place in small bags or containers and place in the freezer.
On the bags with a semi-finished product, they write the date of the bookmark for storage. This can be done with a marker or sticky paper with the date on the packages with tape. This will allow the product to be used in a timely manner.
Choosing a beet for freezing, they give preference to root crops with one tail. If a vegetable has many roots, then it is tough.
Boiled beets
Medium-sized table beets are washed and boiled in the peel until cooked. Drain hot water, rinse vegetables cold water and cool. Peel, grate or cut into cubes. The finished product is divided into portions and each is placed in a tight plastic bag. Packages are placed in a freezer and stored at a temperature of 12-14 degrees below zero.
Freezing tops
You can also freeze beet tops. This product is used to prepare green borscht and vitamin salads. Only young leaves of a light green color are suitable for freezing. They are gentle and without hard veins. The tops are washed with running water, dried, spread out on a towel, and finely chopped. Greens are packed in bags, tied and sent to the freezer. It is recommended to store beet tops for no more than 8 months.
Beetroot puree
For the preparation of first courses and side dishes, you can freeze grated beets. For harvesting, young, strong roots, with one root, are chosen. The vegetables are washed with a brush, dried with a towel and peeled. Rub it on a fine grater, squeeze the juice a little and put it in small bags or plastic containers.
Beet puree is allowed to be stored for six months, after which the vegetable loses its beneficial properties. It cannot be defrosted again, so the product is laid out in portions.
Borscht preparation
You can freeze a semi-finished product for borscht for the winter. For cooking, you need to prepare the following products:
- beets - 2 kg;
- carrots - 2 kg;
- sweet pepper - 700 grams.
Beets and carrots are washed with a brush and peeled, peppers are peeled from seeds. Root vegetables are rubbed on a coarse grater, pepper is cut into cubes. Mix the vegetables and place them in small bags in portions.
When preparing borscht, vegetables are fried in a pan along with a tomato, after which they are poured into the pan.
Storage methods
You can store frozen vegetables in plastic bags and small plastic containers. But it should be borne in mind that the packages are stacked more compactly in the freezer box. IN plastic containers it is recommended to store the beetroot puree. The vegetables in the freezer must be grouped by type. Do not load everything together in the freezer drawer. Starting to look for one blank, you will have to pull out the rest, but folding them back is difficult.
Defrosting rules
If frozen beets are used to prepare first courses and side dishes, they do not need to be defrosted. In this case, the semi-finished product is poured into the pan, a small amount is added vegetable oil and stew covered for 15 minutes.
Boiled vegetables should be thawed gradually. To do this, the bag with the blank is taken out of the freezer and placed on the refrigerator shelf. It is advisable to do this in the evening, then in the morning the product can be used to prepare second courses.
Beetroot puree is also thawed gradually, putting the desired portion of the product in the refrigerator. Speed up the process by placing a bag of grated vegetable in a bowl of warm water.
Whole frozen vegetables are thawed at room temperature. If you get them in the morning, then in the evening they can be used to make salads. Beets are a storehouse of nutrients. It is not necessary to store it in fresh... The product is grated, cut into cubes and cubes, and then frozen.
The process of freezing beets is not much different from freezing other vegetables. You can freeze beets both raw and boiled, as well as mashed potatoes.
It is clear that the best root crops must be selected. They should be small, firm to the touch, intact and not spoiled, the skin is smooth, maroon. Pay attention to the spine, it should not be “hairy”. Beets with such a tail will be very tough on the inside.
Since beets grow in the ground, they must be washed very well, washing off all the dirt from the skin. This must be done carefully, looking closely at each beet, because you can easily miss the dirty areas on the dark skin of the vegetable.
Armed with a knife, remove the skin from the clean beets. Do this on a surface from which you can easily remove skins and tails, because beet juice dripping from them can brightly stain the countertop or other work surface. You can clean the vegetable directly into the trash can. Then rinse the beets again.
In general, beets are most often used for making borscht and salads. Therefore, it will have a corresponding cutting shape.
Have you decided on the shape and size? Then let's get started.
A. Harvesting raw beets in strips or straws.
Cut the peeled beets into thin strips of equal length. There are many chopping options, you can cut it with a knife, on a special grater, chop in a combine with the appropriate attachment.
Fold the straws in a bag (it is better to do it with a spoon) with a Zip-Lock, release as much air as possible, sign the label, be sure to indicate that the beets are RAW and set the freezing date.
B. Harvesting raw grated beets.
These beets are best for cooking.
Armed with a grater, grate the beets as much as you like. Personally, I rub most of the whole lot of beets for freezing, because I cook borscht in a week, and such a frozen preparation helps me a lot.
The process of rubbing beets is not quick, so you can resort to additional help - use a food processor. The technique will grind the vegetable many times faster, and there will be much less splashing.
By the way about them. If you rub beets by hand, then you can hardly avoid them. Therefore, in order not to wash the kitchen and other appliances from the beet spots after hours, put on an apron and cover with a cloth or towel those kitchen appliances to which spray can fly. Your hands from working with beets will be stained; medical or plastic gloves will help to avoid this.
And in order to remove beet juice from the surface of the skin and kitchen utensils, there is a simple folk remedy- mix lemon juice With salt. Rub a cutting board with this mixture, and then wash with any detergent. Rub your hands with this mixture in the same way, and then wash with soap.
Put the grated beets, as well as the straws, into a bag, release the air and sign the label.
An important point - put in bags such an amount of vegetables that is suitable for preparing one dish or a portion acceptable to you. Repeated defrosting and freezing of beets is not recommended, this destroys all of its usefulness.
C. Harvesting boiled beets.
Without cutting the beets into pieces or cutting off the tail, immerse the vegetable in a saucepan with cold water so that the water is 2-3 cm higher than the beets.Put on the fire and boil at closed lid, about an hour and a half for medium-sized beets.
If you are not sure about the readiness of the vegetable, then pierce the beets with a thin knife or skewer. If a sharp object easily enters the beet pulp (namely, to its center), you can take it out, it is cooked.
Cool the boiled beets as quickly as possible - pour the vegetable several times with cold water.
Peel the beets. The skin should peel off easily.
From boiled beets, we will make blanks in the form of small cubes and mashed potatoes. You can also coarsely grate boiled beets, freeze, and cook in winter.
It's very simple: cut, transfer to a bag, release the air and freeze by signing the label. Be sure to defrost these cubes before adding them to the salad.