Is it possible to freeze fresh cabbage for the winter
Autumn is a hot season for every housewife. People often wonder if cabbage can be frozen. The answer is overwhelmingly positive. Of course, freezing is a way to quickly and easily make a special version of winter harvesting.
So, not only fruits and berries can be frozen. Cabbage perfectly tolerates the effects of negative temperatures. Most often it is fermented or salted, however, in ice cream, it can be used for cooking. For salads or appetizers, such forks are not useful, because they become soft after defrosting, but you can make wonderful borscht, cutlets and vegetable casseroles.
With great pleasure this vegetable is frozen by those housewives who are engaged in large-scale harvesting for the winter and wondering whether it is possible to freeze white cabbage.
If you have a large chamber in the freezer and a good harvest, you can provide yourself with supplies for the whole winter, and buy fresh cabbage only for cooking fresh dishes.
Application of frozen forks
You can use pre-frozen white cabbage for the winter in different ways:
- Use for stuffed cabbage. Thawed leaves do not need to be boiled in boiling water, because they will already be soft after exposure to cold air.
- Vegetable stew. It goes well with potatoes, onions and fresh carrots.
- Use as a filling. Delicious pies can be made with frozen head of cabbage.
In frozen form, it is as versatile as fresh. It will not work to make a salad from it, because the cabbage becomes soft, but the main properties are preserved: it does not fall apart, the taste remains practically unchanged. It is important that you can freeze not only winter, obviously very tough varieties of white cabbage, but also summer, soft ones.
Advantages and disadvantages of freezing
Before freezing, you need to understand what to expect from this process, what results can be achieved. Along with drying vegetables, "cryotherapy" is becoming very popular with housewives.
By freezing cabbage for the winter, you can be sure that:
- there will always be a ready-made semi-finished product at hand;
- useful qualities of the vegetable will not be lost;
- if necessary, the product can be quickly defrosted;
- the vegetable will remain for a long time;
- mixing with other vegetables, and then freezing the mixture, you can not think about making soups in winter.
There is such a way to preserve the crop, like freezing cabbage, and disadvantages:
- unsuitability of white cabbage for creating salads;
- no crunch after defrosting;
- high requirements for the volume of the freezer.
Use caution when defrosting cabbage. If the product cannot be used, re-freezing is not possible.
Preparation for freezing
There are deadlines for harvesting vegetables from the garden. Subsequently, it can be stored in a cool dry place or the cabbage can be frozen for the winter. Even a young housewife can handle the simplest freezing process. However, this procedure has certain nuances:
- Before you freeze cabbage, it must be well prepared: make sure that the heads of cabbage are intact and that there are no signs of rotting.
- For freezing, you can take only strong heads of cabbage that are formed in the correct way.
- There should be no traces of insects, otherwise the caterpillars will be frozen along with the leaves in which they are hiding.
- The upper leaves must be removed, the washed head must be wiped off with a towel.
If you suspect the presence of insects, you should soak the forks for half an hour in cold water, to which 40 grams of sodium chloride per liter of liquid was previously added. After such treatment, the forks should be rinsed well.
How to freeze white cabbage
Depending on how the vegetable is supposed to be used, the method of freezing should also be chosen: with a whole fork, separate leaves, or chopped. The shelf life in the freezer also depends on this.
Frozen heads of cabbage should be stored at a temperature not exceeding -18 ° C for 8 - 10 months. If it is not possible to create these conditions, the shelf life should be reduced.
If you plan to prepare a large amount of leaves and shredded material, you should think about purchasing a free-standing freezer.
Each serving should be folded in a bag or wrapped in plastic wrap. Chopped cabbage or whole leaves can be frozen in small bags. The option with the preparation of solid forks is also possible, but this requires a lot of space.
Freezing a whole head of cabbage
If you have the appropriate equipment, you can freeze cabbage for the winter as a whole. Subsequently, these heads of cabbage can be used to make stuffed cabbage. Every housewife knows that minced meat is not wrapped in fresh leaves, because the leaf bursts. To do this, it is pre-boiled or scalded with boiling water. From the sharp effects of temperatures, the cabbage leaf loses its properties and becomes pliable and soft.
Remove the stalk from a clean and dry fork. Better if you do it with a sharp and thin knife. Dry head of cabbage is carefully wrapped with cling film and put into the freezer.
When planning to make stuffed cabbage rolls, you need to get the vegetable out of the freezer in advance and leave it in the refrigerator for a while. In a few hours, the plugs will become usable and not deteriorate. Frozen cabbage cabbage rolls are prepared very quickly; after cooking, it will be possible to find some unfamiliar shades of taste.
Freezing shredded cabbage
After removing the stalk, chop the vegetable in a convenient way. Then the resulting mass is packaged in separate bags, squeezing air out of them, and packed well. To freeze, immediately place the cabbage bags in the freezer.
If a slightly bitter taste is found, the vegetable must be dipped in boiling water for a few seconds, after which the water is allowed to drain. Once the head is dry, you can chop it. Interesting options for preparations are obtained when other vegetables are added to the cabbage during freezing: beets, carrots, bell peppers.
Storage conditions
When thinking about whether it is possible to freeze white cabbage, you should know that you can store a properly frozen vegetable for 10 months. Compliance with the technology involves placing vegetables in a chamber, the temperature inside which is below minus 18 ° C.
If the cabbage has been removed and thawed, you will not be able to repeat the procedure. The leaves will become soft, so when frozen they will be an ice porridge.
When choosing a way to store cabbage, you should take into account all the nuances. Whether to use this method to preserve the entire harvest, each housewife decides independently. However, freezing at least some of the cabbage is worth it, because the cooking conditions of some dishes allow the use of ice cream material.
