How to keep tasty and healthy vegetables from your own garden for the whole winter? The easiest way is to freeze vegetables, but you can pickle and roll them. There are a lot of storage methods, it is important to preserve all the useful properties of the products.
Practical tips for freezing vegetables
Before you put your favorite foods in the freezer, they must be thoroughly washed and dried. It is worth removing the peel and unnecessary parts of the cuttings. Large vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, white cabbage) are cut into small pieces. You can slices or circles. If you want to prepare soup mix or vegetables for frying for the winter, you can chop them in the way that is familiar to you.
Vegetables can be frozen both separately and with a mixture. To do this, it is best to lay the products in a thin layer on a tray and freeze in parts. Then mix in a bag or box. If you immediately place food in a bag or box and freeze it, it will be difficult to take them out. Almost all vegetable plants can be stored in this form, except for radish and lettuce.
Vegetables can be frozen with greens or rice, as well as potatoes. You can make the right mix of vegetables for soup or stew at home. This will significantly save time for preparing lunch or dinner.
Vegetables storage
Remember that vegetables should not be thawed and frozen several times. That is why they should be laid out in portions that you can immediately eat.
At a temperature of -18 degrees in the freezer, vegetables can be stored for no more than a year. At the same time, it is important to ensure that there are no temperature differences, and the vegetables are not re-frozen.
If you choose frozen vegetables in a supermarket, you should make sure the integrity of the package. It should be slightly inflated - this is evidence of its tightness. Vegetables should not be glued or in ice - this indicates improper storage. You should not purchase the product at the end of the shelf life, because the temperature regime could be violated, which means that the product is not suitable for food.
Options for vegetable mixtures
Some vegetables can be slightly steamed before freezing. This helps preserve their color, as well as speed up subsequent cooking. The combination of corn, bell pepper and green peas can be used in both soup and risotto. Carrots, peas, green beans, red beans, corn, celery, pepper, corn - a great combination for stewed vegetables, in which you can add rice or potatoes. Onions, mushrooms, carrots and potatoes - a complete independent dish and a hearty dinner in a few minutes. But frozen tomatoes with pepper and onions can be a great dressing for borsch and vegetable stew.
Many housewives currently practice freezing the basics for borsch and dressing for them. For example, boiled beets, carrots, onions, tomatoes and sweet peppers are almost ready borsch. Separately, you can store frozen tomatoes in slices and add them to pilaf, pizza or soups.
The chopped asparagus beans are great for vegetable soup or as a side dish. It is possible to store asparagus and not chopped, only before freezing it is necessary to rinse, sort and dry. A mixture of vegetables frozen with beans can be pre-doused with boiling water, so they cook faster.
It is very beautiful and delicious to freeze bell peppers of different colors, carrots and corn. This combination is usually cooked with rice or potatoes.
How to cook frozen vegetables
Vegetable preparations are suitable for people who value their time, as well as for adherents of proper nutrition. Frozen vegetables - tasty and healthy in any form. There are many recipes with mixed vegetables. It should be noted that most do not even defrost the product before cooking, although this is wrong, because vegetables lose their beneficial properties.
Before cooking, the mixture must be thawed, rinsed and dried (allow excess moisture to drain). And now you can start frying or stewing. Remember, do not cook vegetables for too long, because at the same time vitamins are destroyed. Assorted vegetables are usually cooked no more than 15-20 minutes. If you freeze vegetables yourself, then make sure their combination is optimal. After all, too large slices of cabbage, broccoli or other vegetables will take longer to cook than zucchini, pumpkin or cubes of carrots. Therefore, they should be cut finely enough.
Recipes with frozen vegetables (recipe with photo and step by step instructions)
Most housewives know that cooking delicious vegetables is a big job. Most often, this healthy dish is not very favored by households. However, there are many secrets with which your vegetables will be eaten to the last spoon. So, how to cook frozen vegetables tasty and festive? For this, we always use three basic rules:
- Balance of salt and spices. Vegetables are a neutral product that absorbs all spices like a sponge. It is important to maintain balance, because too much salt and seasoning, as well as their lack, can ruin the dish.
- Sauces and fillings are the main friend of vegetables. Cream, sour cream and cheese sauce can turn almost any dish into a culinary masterpiece. Your family and friends will be pleasantly surprised when they find out that the simplest frozen zucchini is hidden under the gentle cream.
- Greens, more greens. Dill, parsley and basil will help the dish to find an unusual taste and aroma.
Oven Vegetable Casserole
To prepare the dish, we need 200 grams of vegetables (you can assorted, or your favorite green peas or broccoli), as well as 2 eggs, 250 ml of milk (you can cream), 100 grams of hard cheese, salt, spices and herbs.
Frozen vegetables in the oven with an omelet - it is very healthy and tasty. The result is 2 full servings for breakfast or dinner. First you need to set the oven to warm up. In a deep container, beat the eggs to a homogeneous consistency, salt and pepper. Then add 200-250 ml of milk or cream to them, whisk again. Now you can attach vegetables to the resulting mass. Sprinkle with greens and grated cheese on top. Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes. A healthy and hearty breakfast is ready.
Vegetables in a slow cooker
The process of preparing any dish in a slow cooker is simple and convenient. Frozen vegetables cooked in a slow cooker can be either an independent dish or a side dish, or an addition to rice or potatoes.
Recipe 1: Side Dish
The vegetable mixture (400-500 grams) is placed in the capacity of the multicooker, add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, onion and garlic, as well as salt, pour 1 cm of water and cook for the "Stew" function. After 20-30 minutes, you can check the readiness.
Recipe 2: with rice or potatoes
You need to take 1 measuring cup of brown rice, mix it with 300-400 grams of vegetable mixture, add salt, pepper and herbs to taste. If there are no tomatoes in the mixture, you can add them separately or replace with a tablespoon of tomato paste.
If you cook vegetables with potatoes, then it should be cut into cubes or slices, 4-5 middle root crops are enough. To them we add vegetables from the freezer, salt, pepper and herbs. At the end of cooking, you can pour all the cream and simmer another 5-10 minutes. We put the slow cooker on the "Stew" or "Soup" mode.
Fried vegetables
Very quickly you can cook a vegetable side dish of asparagus, cauliflower, pepper and peas. Frozen vegetables in a pan must be fried for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. At the end of frying, add a clove of garlic (chopped or whole), as well as ketchup or 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. Sprinkle everything abundantly with herbs; the onion and basil will be useful in this dish.
Many people are interested in how to cook frozen vegetables with potatoes in a pan, because the cooking time for these dishes is different. The thing is that natural vegetable juice will not allow potatoes to fry until golden brown. Therefore, if you want fried potatoes and fried vegetables, then they should be cooked separately. An excellent option can be chopped jacket potatoes (pre-cooked), along with vegetables in an ordinary pan or grill. To do this, take 3-4 medium potatoes and boil in their skins. Then cut into slices or circles with a diameter of at least 1 cm. Sprinkle the chopped potatoes with spices (paprika, salt, Provence herbs). In a preheated pan, fry the vegetable mixture until golden brown, then attach the potatoes to it. The dish is ready.
Chicken and frozen vegetables (photos and recommendations)
Cooking in the oven is always helpful. And if you do this in a special package, it will turn out to be doubly healthier and tastier. For the dish you will need 500-600 grams of chicken meat, 500 grams of vegetable mixture, fat milk or cream 300 ml, salt and pepper. Pickle chicken in spices in advance (about 2 hours). We put poultry meat, vegetables, salt, pepper in a package for baking and pour all this with cream. Tightly close the baking bag and into the oven. After 45-60 minutes, the dish is ready.
In this recipe you can use the whole chicken, it can be stuffed with vegetables and put them around. Cooking time will increase slightly in this case.
Frozen Broccoli with Cheese
For such a recipe, you need 500-600 grams of broccoli (as part of a vegetable mixture), as well as 4-5 pieces of potatoes, 200 ml cream, 1 egg, 200 grams of hard cheese, salt.
In a deep container we put large pieces of broccoli and half a potato, salt and pepper. Beat cream with egg and grated cheese. Pour vegetables with such a mixture. On top of the container tightly sealed with foil and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Before serving, decorate with herbs.
Vegetable soup
Quick and healthy, you can make soup or broth from frozen vegetables. If you want it to be with meat, then you need to put it to cook in advance. Enough will be 150-200 grams or 2 seeds. The vegetable mixture must contain at least 5 ingredients: onions, carrots, peas or corn, asparagus beans, cauliflower or broccoli, bell peppers.
In boiling meat broth add 200 grams of vegetables and 1 potato, diced. Salt and spices to taste. At the end of cooking, you can add greens.
One of the options for vegetable soup can be rice broth. In this case, we replace the potatoes with half a measured glass of rice - the soup is ready.
Vegetable soup can be cooked without meat. Then, before serving, add half the boiled egg to each serving. So the soup will be more satisfying and healthy.
Rice porridge with frozen pumpkin
Many housewives specially freeze vegetables in the combinations necessary for their signature dishes. So a great Sunday breakfast can be rice porridge with pumpkin. For cooking, you need 1 liter of milk, 1 measuring cup of rice, salt, sugar, 1 tablespoon and 200 grams of pumpkin. Bring the milk to a boil and add rice, a pinch of salt and sugar. After the porridge has boiled again, you can slowly add pumpkin cubes there. The size of the chopped vegetable, each determines for himself. Smaller pieces will boil, while larger ones will taste. Before serving, porridge can be sprinkled with candied fruit and honey.
Frozen vegetables can largely help the housewives when there is very little time, but I want to cook a healthy dish. They are healthy and tasty both fried and stewed. And from them you can cook both the main dish and a delicious dessert.