Strawberry is a favorite berry for everyone, the season of which lasts, depending on the region, from May to July. Of course, the benefits of fresh products are invaluable, and although today you can get berries brought from abroad at any major supermarket all year round, it’s better to freeze strawberries at home. Often the "store" winter version is distinguished by its unexpressed taste or its absence at all, has atypical large forms that are not typical for this berry, which may indicate the use of a large number of chemicals during cultivation, and a rather high price. It is much more beneficial and cheaper to grow the berry yourself or buy it at the nearest market, and then procure it for the winter. How to freeze strawberries, read further in our article. By the way, the usefulness of such a blank is invaluable, because the berries retain all the nutritional properties inherent in a fresh product. And in a snowy winter, how nice it is to get a serving of strawberries, thaw it and eat it, thereby supporting the body's immunity. Or make various desserts from it - mousse, pie, ice cream sauce and others.
How to freeze strawberries: method number 1
There are two main ways to prepare berries for the winter - in the form of fresh jam, which does not need to be boiled, or traditionally preserve the whole fruit. Let's look at the first option. Peel the required amount of strawberries, rinse thoroughly with water, dry and put in a blender. Then add sugar - 100 g per 400 g of berries. Beat everything well until smooth, divide into portions and transfer into molds - plastic containers, glass jars with thick walls or strong bags, place in the freezer. Such a blank may well be stored until next summer. And in the winter, having pulled out a bag of delicious jam, you can serve it for fragrant tea, make dressing for pancakes or a filling for pies.
How to freeze strawberries: method number 2
It is known that the berry, which has lain in the freezer for a certain time, thawing, often turns into a "jelly" or a blurry, unappetizing looking mass. Of course, you can simply put the strawberries in packages and send them to the freezer, or you can use some tricks. First, you need to choose the fruits of the late varieties, but not overripe and not very soft. It is not necessary to separate the green stalks. They also say that if you do not wash strawberries before freezing, it will retain more vitamins. This is just an opinion, after all, scientific research on a similar topic has hardly been carried out, so it's up to you to decide. Secondly, you need to pack the whole berry in portions in packages - exactly in the amount that you may need in the future. Re-defrosting any unspent plant products is highly undesirable.
Frozen Strawberries: Delicious Food Recipes
From a berry stored in this way, you can cook a large number of dishes. Perhaps as much as fresh. Here are recipes for some of them.
Strawberry mousse
To make your family happy in the winter, try making mousse with freshly thawed berries. After all, it resembles summer so much! For him you will need:
- 300 g of strawberries;
- 100 g of sugar;
- edible gelatin - about 3 teaspoons.
By the way, if you harvested berries in the first way, just take a portion out of the refrigerator a couple of hours before cooking, but in this case use only gelatin - there is already sugar in fresh jam. If you have the whole berries, then wipe them through a sieve or beat in a thick foam using a blender, and then add sugar. Soak gelatin (it should swell), heat it on a stove (but do not boil) until crystals are completely dissolved, pour into strawberry puree and mix thoroughly. The mass needs to be laid out in tins and sent to freeze in the refrigerator. After a couple of hours you can serve an excellent dessert, especially tasty if you drink it with milk. Frozen strawberries, whose benefits are indistinguishable from fresh berries, will give you the necessary amount of vitamins, and milk - a lot of healthy calcium.
Pancake Frozen Strawberry Sauce
For him, take:
- 300 g of frozen strawberries (do not first defrost it);
- 3 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar;
- about 100 g of water;
- 1 tsp starch.
Grind the berries in a blender, put in a pan, add sugar and water. Stir, bring to a boil over low heat. Then, diluted with a small amount of water, pour the starch into the strawberry puree, which does not yet need to be removed from the heat, cook the sauce until thickened. Keep in mind that the more starch you add, the thicker the sauce will be. Done - you can serve with pancakes or use as gravy for ice cream. Now, knowing how to freeze strawberries properly, you can cook these and other dishes all year round. Their taste and benefits will be appreciated by all members of your family.