The easiest options for how you can freeze parsley for the winter in the refrigerator
Let's talk about how to freeze parsley for the winter in the refrigerator. Garden abundance is a balm for the soul of the owners and at the same time a lot of worries. It is not enough to grow a crop, it must also be preserved.
Freezing parsley is an ideal preserving method for fresh herbs, preserving color and flavor, making it easy to use in the kitchen. Parsley is the most common seasoning: people like to add it to salads and soups, and use it in folk medicine and cosmetology. No matter how much parsley you store for the winter, it will still be small.
But an experienced gardener does not need to be taught how to take care of the estate in order to freeze enough vegetables, parsley and other herbs for the winter in the refrigerator.
How to properly prepare a spice
Harvesting parsley for the winter does not have to be at the end of the season. The more often the branches are cut, the more tender and juicy the fragrant grass grows again. If you don't touch the bushes until the end of summer, the branches will become tough. The parsley bed should be of such a size that part of it has time to recover while the owners are working with the other. If you use parsley roots in the kitchen, you need to decide in advance which bushes you need to dig up in the fall.
Harvesting parsley for the winter can be done not only with the help of cold: the grass is sprinkled with salt, pickled, greens and parsley roots can be dried. The latter option is not as vitamin-rich, but it is good for preparing dry spice mixtures. Only industrial shock freezing can fully preserve the vitamins and microelements of the product. But if you do everything correctly and quickly at home, you can get the most out of your blanks.
Fresh healthy leaves are suitable for winter storage. Don't freeze store-bought parsley from the supermarket for the winter. There, the herbs are processed with preservatives that will turn the seasoning into a real poison.
Planning and preparation
Each kitchen uses their own recipes on how to properly freeze parsley. So that later the grass is convenient to use in cooking, several important points must be taken into account:
- If possible, it is better to set aside a separate drawer in the freezer for vegetables and spices so that food odors do not mix.
- The parsley must be well washed and dried thoroughly. If you do not remove excess moisture, then in the end the mass will freeze into one lump.
- Packaging material must be prepared in advance: zip bags, food foil, ice molds, plastic containers.
- Freezing must be packaged wisely.It is good if the greens are immediately divided in portions. Why can't you keep the seasoning in one big bag? Each time you take out the next portion, the entire contents of the bag will come into contact with air and lose their properties.
- The spice should last the whole winter.
The method of freezing parsley should be oriented towards the dishes to which the seasoning will be added. Consider several different options for adding to starters, dressing salads, and for garnishing. All favorite recipes should have a matching template.
Procurement methods
The first thing to do is to prepare the greens for freezing. It must be washed, sorted out, freed from dry and limp twigs. Then form the parsley into a bunch and cut off the coarse lower stems. The remaining delicate leaves must be poured with plenty of water for an hour, so that fine grains of sand sink to the bottom, and snails and insects crawl out to the surface. After the greens are sorted out again and washed under running water. It can now be dried on a kitchen towel or parchment paper. When the excess moisture has evaporated, you can freeze it. We offer several interesting recipes on how to properly freeze parsley, for all occasions.
The easiest way to freeze
Parsley is chopped, put on a baking sheet and sent to the freezer. Do not cut the greens too finely: the less the knife touches the leaves, the more useful substances are stored in them. Some housewives simply tear the grass with their hands. Frozen parsley very fragile, and in the process of shifting it will break, crushing even more.
An hour later, the frozen parsley is taken out of the refrigerator and transferred to portioned bags. Such a friable workpiece will take up less space, it will be easy to divide into parts and look beautiful in the soup.
Someone likes to freeze parsley for the winter with a whole bunch, just stuffing it into a bag, but then using such a blank is very inconvenient. If space in the freezer allows, you can pour the seasoning into a plastic container and close it tightly.
You can put the herbs on food foil and, twirling a roll, put them in the freezer. Some housewives love this packaging option. In winter, you can spin the roll and get as much frozen greens out of it as needed.
Beautiful twigs for decorating festive dishes
We pack the washed and dried leaves in food foil envelopes and put them in such a way as to disturb them as little as possible before use. Freezing parsley in this way requires great care. When it comes time to use the twigs, it's important to let the envelope defrost before opening it, otherwise the decoration will break. Curly parsley is especially decorative.
Ice Cubes
Fill the finely chopped parsley into an ice container and fill it with a little water. This method is suitable for those whose freezer is not too loaded for the winter. After completely freezing, we transfer the cubes to a bag.
These cubes can be added directly to a bowl of hot soup for a fresh summer flavor and help cool the dish faster. The use of greens frozen in this way is well suited for cryomassage of the face. Cubes whiten and rejuvenate the skin.
Instead of water, greens can be poured with olive oil - this will be a salad version of freezing. Alternatively, tomato juice will work. Personally, I ice it with a little lemon juice and honey for savory vegetable salads.
The ideologists of real Cossack borscht prepare cubes of greens with finely chopped salted bacon, then grind them in a mortar with garlic - this is called "crushing" borscht.Little tricks like this make time-tested recipes easier.
Freezing secrets
A good housewife won't waste anything. The lower stems of the parsley can also be used. They are rough, but with aroma and astringency of taste they surpass leaves, they have more juice and vitamins. If ground in a blender and frozen into cubes, they can be used as an ingredient in broths. The green mass is added after boiling to beef or pork and gives the broth a noble taste and aroma. You can also use such greens in winter as part of marinades for fish or chicken.
Before freezing, the parsley root must be washed, peeled, cut into small pieces and blanched. It gives any dish a special spicy flavor.
Can parsley be frozen mixed with other spices? Sure! You can and should mix it according to your taste - with onions, dill or wild garlic, in order to diversify the taste of your favorite dishes with herbs. It remains only to choose how to freeze parsley for the winter in order to use it with benefit and variety.
Greens cannot be thawed repeatedly - this will harm it. The grass will lose its properties and darken. If for some reason it is necessary to empty the freezer, the freezer can be transferred to sterilized glass jars and filled with a simple marinade.
Properly cooked frozen parsley can be safely stored until the next gardening season. To make it come sooner, you need to take care of the garden bed - cover it for the winter, and stretch the film in the spring. In March-April, it will already be possible to add the first fresh leaves to food.
