Basil is a very fragrant and beautiful herb. It contains many useful trace elements and vitamins. This spicy plant is used to make salads, sauces, marinades and soups. The presence of basil in dishes promotes good digestion. Therefore, it is so important to use it all year round. If you do not have the opportunity to grow this spice in the cold season on a balcony or window, then take care in the summer to prepare the basil for the future. This can be done in ways that are described in detail in the materials of this article. We invite you to familiarize yourself with them and take yourself into service.
How to prepare basil for the winter? Council of our grandmothers
Since ancient times, greens have been kept dried. But you need to know how to do it right. The technology of drying basil at home is brought to your attention.
Young greens need to be washed under a running stream of water, dried and chopped. Lay the basil on a flat surface (a piece of plywood, a baking sheet, a drip tray) and let it dry in a dry, darkened room. It can be an attic, a shaded loggia, a barn. Spicy weed dries in a natural way for about five days.
An oven and a dehydrator are electrical appliances in which greens can be dried. How to prepare basil for the winter in them? The answer is simple: quick and easy. Put the baking sheet with the greens spread on it in the device and keep it at a temperature of 40 degrees until it dries completely. You can check the "readiness" as follows: rub the leaf with your fingers. Dry grass will grind well in your hands and rustle. Remember that during the drying process in the oven, its door should be slightly open.
Store greens in a dry room in cloth bags or glass containers.
Pickled basil
Spicy greens prepared in this way can be used as dressing for first courses and vegetable sauces for meat and fish.
Ingredients: basil (10 bunches), vinegar 9%, rock salt, sugar (40 grams each), garlic (2 cloves per 0.5 l jar).
How to prepare basil for the winter by pickling: a description of the process.
Put garlic and herbs in each jar. Boil water (2 l), sugar, vinegar, rock salt in a saucepan. Pour marinade containers with herbs and sterilize them in boiling water for ten minutes. Cork jars with lids for preservation. Wrap blanks with blankets and allow to cool naturally.
Frozen Basil. How to keep greens in the refrigerator correctly for the winter ?
Dry way of freezing. Grind washed and dried herbs, pack them in plastic bags, release air from them and tie them on a knot. Put packages in the freezer. After a while, stir the bag so that the spice crumbles. If this is not done, the whole basil can freeze in one piece, and in the future it will be inconvenient to use.
Wet way to freeze greens. Put chopped weed in ice molds, pour in chilled boiled or filtered water and put in the freezer. When the contents of the forms turn into ice cubes with herbs, shake them in a bag, wrap and leave in the freezer. For convenience, you can wrap each cube in a plastic wrap.
You learned how to prepare basil for the winter in many ways. Choose the one that is most convenient for you to perform. Greens, harvested for future use by precisely these methods, retain all the beneficial properties, and you can be sure that feed your family a natural and healthy product.