On cold frosty evenings, you often want to treat yourself to something tasty and healthy. Various berries can remind us of summer, saturate the body with vitamins and please with pleasant sensations. However, finding them fresh out of season is not easy. Let's talk about how to freeze blueberries for the winter. It is the best suited for baking, sweet salads, fruit drinks, and fresh consumption.
Useful properties of blueberries
In fact, it is important not only to know how to freeze blueberries for the winter, but also why. Buying this fresh fruit in the cold season is quite difficult, it can be expensive, not have the necessary taste, found only in some stores. It’s much easier to make your own blanks. Blueberries must be consumed regularly, this is due to its qualities such as:
- The presence in its composition of a large number of anthocyanins. These components are an excellent natural prevention of such a terrible disease as cancer.
- The ability to remove harmful wastes and toxins from the body.
- Allowed and recommended for diabetes.
- Favorable effect on the organs of vision: with regular use of the berry, you will see that your eyes are less tired, almost no pain, the retina is updated faster.
The first recipe for freezing
So, how to freeze blueberries for the winter? Start your harvesting with the preliminary stage: rinse and select good berries, remove fine litter, dry gently, without breaking the structure. Then pick up a flat tray with the edges, place blueberries on it in one layer. Please note that the fruits should not be in close contact with each other, if you sprinkle them too much, then there is a good chance that they simply freeze among themselves. The container is placed in the freezer for only one hour, after which the blueberries can already be poured into ordinary packets and sent there for long-term storage.
The second recipe - mashed potatoes for the winter
As you can see, the process is very simple and does not take much time and effort. Our next step is to discuss how to freeze blueberries for the winter in the form of mashed potatoes. To start, the berries still need to be selected, washed and dried. Then you need to turn them into a homogeneous mass, the easiest way to do this is with a blender. The resulting mixture is placed in plastic containers and placed in a freezer. If desired, you can supplement the mashed potatoes with a little sugar.
Alternative procurement methods
Blueberries for the winter are harvested not only by freezing. You can also dry the berries on foil in the oven or in the sun, in which case it can be used for cooking jelly or making pastry. In addition, you can immediately make very tasty jam from fresh blueberries or preserve its useful properties while observing the original berry recipes in your own juice. Blueberry compote can also have a beneficial effect on health.
A couple of useful secrets
Frozen blueberries are sure to preserve all the vitamins and essential microelements. The recipes for its preparation may vary slightly, however, you should always consider a number of simple tips:
- choose only whole berries for storage that do not have dents, damage, or shell integrity;
- if you want to enjoy a sweet taste, but do not use sugar, try to choose the largest fruits for storage, they are said to have the most pleasant taste;
- do not forget to wash the berries before freezing, even if you bought them not in the store, but gathered them in the forest, if you forgot this simple rule, be sure to wash the blueberries after defrosting;
- if you store your blanks in a recycled form in glass jars, take care of the cleanliness of the container, sterilize it in any convenient way.
Blueberries in bags
Let's get back to the question of how to freeze blueberries properly. If you are limited in time, then the simplest solution will look like this. Sort through the fruits, wash and dry thoroughly (note that there is no excess moisture on the berries, this is very important). Pack prepared berries in transparent plastic bags and put in the freezer. After about a couple of hours, the blueberries will need to be pulled out and, without removing from the package, shake gently. This action must be done so that the blueberries do not stick together and do not turn into one solid lump.
Assorted
Blueberries go well with berries such as raspberries, strawberries or currants. Indulge yourself and prepare for the winter colds a little more beautiful summer assortment, all the more so since it is prepared just as easily. Select your favorite berries, rinse thoroughly and dry them, using a blender or mixer turn them into a smoothie. Individual fruits may need to be chopped beforehand. Sugar is added to the resulting mass, usually it is put in a ratio of 1: 1, but you can adjust its quantity to your liking. Pack the assortment according to the prepared containers and store in the freezer.