Do you need to wash the cauliflower before freezing. How to freeze cauliflower for the winter: simple tricks

When properly frozen, cauliflower retains all beneficial features

Our well-being largely depends on a proper balanced diet. Cauliflower is one of the most delicious and useful products... Soups, stews, mashed potatoes and casseroles are not a complete list of dishes using this vegetable.

Unfortunately, cauliflower cannot be stored for long fresh so you need a fridge with a large freezer. And in order to preserve the taste and nutrients in frozen vegetables, it is important to adhere to the rules for preparing the product for freezing.

Preparing cauliflower for heat treatment

Product requirements: it must be absolutely fresh, without dark spots on the surface and inside the inflorescences. It is best if the cauliflower is grown by you in your own garden, which gives you complete confidence in its environmental friendliness. It is these vegetables that are recommended for children to cook without fear of harming their health.

When to freeze cauliflower?

It is best to harvest the harvest from your garden for the winter immediately after harvesting, it is then that the vegetables retain maximum benefit and integrity. Cauliflower is harvested in July, focusing on color (completely white, uniform, yellowing must not be allowed), structure (strong, dense), and the size of the "heads" with inflorescences (10-12 cm, up to 2 kg in weight).

If you freeze cauliflower for toasting in breadcrumbs, divide the cabbage into medium sprigs. For puree soups, the cauliflower is disassembled into smaller pieces, which will save some space in the freezer.

Freezing cauliflower at home is possible fresh, and there are two methods:

• no processing at all;
• preliminary soaking in saline solution to destroy pests and increase the elasticity of inflorescences (20-30 minutes).

But to save space in the freezer, and for more fast food dishes, vegetables should be boiled. Especially freezing after heat treatment recommended if the cabbage is harvested for small children.

Rules for boiling cauliflower before freezing

Prepared inflorescences are washed and boiled in salted water for 5 minutes. If the cauliflower is meant for baby food boil it twice as long - about 10 minutes. To keep the vegetables white, you can add a little lemon juice.

Cauliflower loses its beneficial properties and firmness with prolonged cooking, so try not to overcook it. That is why you should not prepare a lot of vegetables at once.

There should be enough water in the pot so that the buds can be easily interfered with with a slotted spoon. This is necessary to maintain integrity and appearance cabbage, which is very important when serving dishes.

It is very convenient to boil vegetables in dishes designed for making spaghetti. Such devices have a special insert with holes - a kind of colander. Before you immerse the inflorescences in water, you need to salt it (1-2 tablespoons per 3-5 liters of water).

Cabbage should only be dipped in boiling water. Then boil for 3 minutes, stir gently and soak for the same amount of time in boiling water. Then take out the insert along with the contents, and put it in a saucepan with cold water... If you use ordinary dishes, for example, a colander, rinse the vegetables in it under the tap, without creating a strong pressure of water.

After cooling the boiled vegetables, place the colander on a deep plate or saucepan so that the water is glass. After that, you can spread the cabbage on a linen or cotton napkin.

For thermal processing of cauliflower, you can use a double boiler, or a multicooker with support for the appropriate mode. Steam cooking takes 20 minutes after the water has boiled.

Chilling steamed cauliflower is easy. Place it on a napkin and leave for 20 minutes. cool down at room temperature.

Freezing cauliflower at home

To preserve the integrity of vegetables and fruits, as well as to avoid freezing them among themselves, you should use fast freezing, which is supported by almost all modern refrigerators and freezers. To do this, the cabbage inflorescences that have cooled down after cooking should be laid out on a special shelf so that they do not come into contact with each other.

After 2-3 hours, the vegetables will freeze and they are poured into containers for freezing. They can already be shaken lightly for tighter styling to save space in the freezer.

How to avoid quick freezing

Some housewives prefer to freeze cauliflower without any pretreatment at all - rinsing, soaking and boiling. In this case, you can do without quick freezing: the vegetables remain completely dry and will not be covered with ice - which means they will not stick together.

Before freezing cauliflower at home, it is recommended that you place a date sticker on each container. This is especially important for frozen foods for small family members. The shelf life of cauliflower in the freezer is up to 9 months, at a temperature of minus 15-20 degrees Celsius.

For freezing, you can use special bags with fasteners, or even ordinary, but dense - plastic bags. This can save space in the freezer. Frozen cabbage will not be damaged, even if you store it, stacking the following batches on top of the first layer of bags.

For omelets, casseroles, or pan cooking, be sure to defrost frozen cauliflower at room temperature before use. Heating in microwave oven, as well as warm, or hot water can not be used in any case - the vegetables will soften and "float".

Outcome

Regular consumption of vegetables helps to rejuvenate the body and strengthen the immune system. Freezing cauliflower - The best way keep the benefits of vegetables for the whole winter from your garden, ensuring healthy eating for the whole family.

Not everyone knows how to freeze cauliflower, although it seems that there is nothing complicated here. However, often the result of freezing cauliflower is a large lump of vegetables, which is incredibly difficult to divide into small inflorescences. By following a few simple freezing requirements, you can get a perfectly preserved product. Frozen cabbage is used to make soups, casseroles, vegetable stews.

Ingredients

• good quality cauliflower.

Preparation

For freezing, you need to take a strong, young cauliflower without traces of insect damage, spoilage and rot. Dark spots on the surface of cabbage are a sure sign that this vegetable is best not used for freezing. Give preference to cabbage that was recently cut from the garden, rather than one that has already been stored for a while.

Transfer the cauliflower to a bowl and fill it with cool, clean water, repeat the process several times. This will wash away any insects that may be hiding between leaves or inside inflorescences. After rinsing the cabbage, shake off excess water, then cut off the green leaves. After that, with your hands or with a sharp knife, divide the cabbage forks into small inflorescences, the size
about 3 cm.

Of course, the slicing can be different. Plan in advance what you will cook from frozen cabbage, what dishes are popular in your family. For soup, you can cut the vegetable into smaller pieces, for a casserole or stew - larger.

Before blanching, cabbage can be kept in salted water for 20-30 minutes. The brine is made in this way: add 4 tablespoons to 1 liter of water. salt, stir and place the cabbage inflorescences there. After half an hour, rinse the cauliflower with running water.

To blanch the cauliflower, pour into a saucepan the right amount water and bring it to a boil. Transfer the inflorescences to a colander and lower it in a saucepan, hold for 3 minutes. After that, remove the colander from the boiling water and immediately cool the cabbage, you can lower it in a container of ice water. Blanching kills the enzymes responsible for breaking down the flavor and color of cabbage during storage.

It is optimal to freeze cauliflower in small portions - at a time. To do this, give preference to small bags or containers. Transfer the cabbage and, if possible, release the air from them. Before use, the cabbage only needs to be steamed or immersed in boiling water for 1.5 minutes. After that, you can add cabbage to any dish you decide to cook.

Along with harvesting vegetables, freezing them for the winter is gaining more and more popularity. Today we'll talk about how to properly freeze cauliflower at home for the winter.

How to freeze cauliflower for the winter for a child

Cauliflower is rich in various vitamins and minerals. It is well suited for feeding babies from 6 months, but not for a newborn. In summer and autumn, there are no problems with purchasing this vegetable. Someone grows it in their garden or summer cottage, someone buys it in the market or in a store.

But for the winter, it is better to freeze cauliflower. With this method, the beneficial properties of the product are preserved. Also, the vegetable does not lose its taste.

Since this product is very useful for babies in winter, you need to know how to freeze cauliflower for the first feeding.

On a note! A product intended for a baby should be boiled 2 times longer before freezing than for an adult.

You need to prepare:

• Cauliflower;
• Salt;
• Water;
• Containers or packages.

Self-grown vegetables are ideal for freezing. Or acquired from good friends. The key is to make sure your vegetables are grown without chemicals.

1. Now let's decide what we will freeze the cabbage inflorescences. If these are containers, then they should be disinfected by boiling.
2. For freezing, select the upper part of the inflorescences with a delicate structure. Now they need to be processed. To do this, place the product in a container with warm salt water for 30 minutes. This procedure will help rid the inflorescences of insects and their larvae.
3. Then rinse the vegetable and boil in boiling water. After 10 minutes, pour over the inflorescences with ice water, strain and let dry.
4. We pack the finished product in plastic containers, sachets or vacuum bags and send it to the freezer to freeze.

Advice! The package must be filled with enough product to use this amount at a time.

How best to freeze: raw or boiled

You can freeze this vegetable raw or boiled, or better blanched. Most often they are frozen in separate inflorescences, but sometimes with whole heads. Both methods have some advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it is up to you to decide what is best.

1. Blanched or boiled cauliflower loses some nutrients after freezing, but retains its flavor, color, aroma and texture better.
2. There are several secrets to this kind of freezing. To prevent the inflorescences from darkening, during cooking, add to the water citric acid in the amount of a third of a teaspoon per liter of water.
3. After boiling, the cabbage is immediately placed in ice water, so that after thawing the inflorescences do not lose their shape and rich taste, almost like a fresh product.
4. By freezing raw cauliflower, you can store more beneficial nutrients. This is certainly a plus, but a minus is that it darkens, losing its natural color, becomes more watery, to some extent loses its taste.
5. The raw freezing process takes less time. The vegetable should only be freed from insects and larvae, washed, dried and frozen.
6. When freezing, the container must be hermetically closed so that there is no air access.

If cauliflower is frozen, and it has darkened, then the cooking technology has been violated.

For cooking, it is better to use the product without defrosting it. If it is necessary to defrost, it is enough without boiling to lower the inflorescences for a minute in boiling water and dry.

Storage periods

The shelf life of frozen cauliflower depends on the temperature in the freezer:

• From 18 to 20 degrees, the product can be stored for up to a year;
• From 12 to 17 - up to six months;
• If the refrigerator is at least six degrees, then storage is limited to two, in best case three weeks.

Freeze cauliflower and broccoli

Now I will tell you how to properly freeze cauliflower at home for the winter, this preparation will not take much time.

For freezing, you need to choose a head of cabbage without dark spots and damage. You should also pay attention to the leaves, they should not be lethargic and yellowed.

Let's start freezing broccoli and cauliflower:

1. First of all, you need to wash the cabbage well.
2. Then, in one liter of water, dissolve 60 grams of salt. Immerse cabbage in salted liquid for twenty minutes. If there are bugs in the inflorescences, they will certainly float to the surface.
3. After that, the heads of cabbage must be rinsed under running water and disassembled into inflorescences.
4. Pour water into a volumetric container, add a little lemon juice, let it boil.
5. Dip the inflorescences into boiling water, boil for three minutes. Later boiled cabbage put in a bowl with cold water. After two minutes, lay out the inflorescences on a napkin.
6. Once they are dry, place them in a bag or container. We put it in the freezer.

On a note! Broccoli, unlike cauliflower, should be disassembled into small inflorescences.

That's all!

What you can cook: recipes

For the child: cauliflower soup

It is very helpful and nutritious dish for a child. This soup can be cooked not only with meat, but also with vegetable broth.

We need the following products:

• 50 grams of beef pulp;
• 30 grams of carrots;
• 5 grams of onions;
• 60 grams of cauliflower;
• A teaspoon of olive oil;
• 200 milliliters of water.

Put the meat in a saucepan with cold water, put it on the fire.

1. After boiling, pour out the liquid, and rinse the meat with boiled water. The second time we fill the pulp with clean water, cook at a slow boil. It is necessary to descale during the cooking process.
2. After an hour, take out the meat, and put the onions and carrots, cut into cubes, into the finished broth. Cook vegetables for ten minutes.
3. Then add the cauliflower. Cook the soup for another five minutes.
4. Remove the cooked vegetables from the soup and beat together with the meat in a blender.
5. Add to the resulting puree required amount broth, pour in a teaspoon of oil. The soup is ready.

For adults: Cauliflower casserole

Required Ingredients:

• 350 grams of cauliflower or broccoli;
• 150 grams of minced meat;
• 50 grams of cheese;
• One egg;
• 3 tablespoons sour cream;
• One small bell pepper;
• Half a small onion.

Cook frozen inflorescences in salted water for three minutes.

1. Put the cooked vegetables in a colander, let cool.
2. Put finely chopped onion in the minced meat, bell pepper, chilled cabbage. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Add finely grated cheese and sour cream to the beaten egg. Pour the resulting mixture into the minced meat. Mix well.
4. We heat the oven to 200 degrees. Grease the form with oil, evenly distribute the minced meat. Cover the top with foil. We bake for half an hour. Then remove the foil and continue cooking for another fifteen minutes.
5. Sprinkle herbs on the finished dish.

I advise you to watch the video on how to properly freeze cauliflower.

Now you know how to properly freeze cauliflower at home for the winter, cooked dishes from frozen vegetables will appeal to adults and children. Now you will not have a question: "Is it possible to give this vegetable to the baby?"

In the fall, the question always arises: What to preserve? In this article, we will discuss how to properly freeze cauliflower in the refrigerator for the winter. This method is very simple: if you do everything right, you will provide all your household members with all the useful vitamins and minerals for the whole winter.

Also, you should always remember that frozen foods need to be properly removed from the "sleep state", and not just kept in the cold. If food is removed from the frozen state correctly, it will retain all the most valuable supply of vitamins and nutrients... Properly cooked defrosted food, with its unique aroma, will take you into summer and bring back warm memories.

Correct selection

There is one simple rule: The most carefully selected foods will last the longest. In our case, cauliflower, when storing it in the refrigerator, must not have any damage... It is better not to put rotten and damaged cauliflower in the refrigerator.

For freezing, it is better to use young cabbage, which has small, milky-white heads. But if the choice is not very large, then larger heads are also suitable for freezing, and which were recently plucked.

For children, you need to freeze cabbage from places where no pesticide treatment has been carried out.

Freezing methods

You can freeze cauliflower two ways:

• The first way is to freeze fresh heads;
• The second way is to freeze the cabbage after blanching.

Let's consider both methods in order.

Consider second way:

• Everything here is the same as in the first method - you first need to wash the heads, then clean them, then cut off all the greens, as in the first method;
• We take a larger container, pour water into it, put it on the stove and wait until the water boils;
• After the water has boiled, put the cabbage heads in boiling water and blanch for about 3 minutes;
• After this time, we move on to the ice bath. To do this, immerse the boiled heads of cauliflower in ice water and hold them there for 3 minutes. After these steps, your cabbage can be placed in the freezer, after making sure that all excess liquid has left it;
• Frozen cabbage is stored for quite a long time, for at least six months, or even more.

For a child

This product is very beneficial to use as a supplement to the main food for infants. In the summer, cauliflower is not a deficiency. You can also find it in your garden, shop or market. Well, what to do in winter? But just in winter, frozen cauliflower will come in handy. How to properly freeze cauliflower for a child?

In general, this is done using the same methodology as for adults, but with only one important difference. Cabbage heads need to be boiled twice as long before you put it in the freezer. It also takes twice as long to boil the product when you decide to cook it.

Cabbage is selected for children more thoroughly... The container in which the cabbage will be frozen needs a longer heat treatment.

How to cook

This is a simple matter. First, you need to decide and decide how exactly you will prepare it. Cauliflower does not need pre-defrost, it is immediately added to dishes, then just cook until cooked.

If you decide to fry cauliflower, say, in batter, then boil it before frying it. To do this, you need to place the pieces of the frozen product in warm water and bring to a boil. After that, the product must be cooked for no more than 10 minutes.

Use a knife to check the readiness of the product. Then we put the product in crackers, or in batter, after which we put the whole thing in a frying pan.

To make a salty cauliflower rinse solution, you must first prepare it. This will require salt and water... We add salt to the water in the calculation - for 1 liter of water 4 teaspoons of salt. Mix the resulting composition thoroughly until the salt is completely dissolved. That's it, the solution is ready.

Many users have a question: Is it possible to freeze whole heads of cauliflower. The answer is simple: It is very possible to freeze whole cabbage in the freezer. It's all about the size of the head. Medium sized heads work best for freezing. The only thing I want to note is that they need to be boiled longer before freezing, about 5 minutes.

Chopped cauliflower into smaller pieces more convenient to place in the freezer compartment... It is also much more convenient to defrost it in sliced ​​form.

There is no need to pack chopped cabbage heads right away. First, you can freeze them a little, say, on a board, and then put them in a frozen container.

It is not necessary to cool the cauliflower after blanching. You can make a semi-finished product. To do this, you need to drain the water and let the product cool down. It will also be useful, after packaging cabbage in packages and containers, to mark them - to indicate the date of freezing of the product.

Conclusion

In the fall, every housewife has more than enough worries and troubles. Everything that summer labors brought must be carefully preserved and recycled.

Freezing is a very effective way to preserve your food. in its original form. When frozen, cauliflower retains all its usefulness, and in winter it will come in handy on your table.

In the summer and autumn periods, the human body is saturated with useful vitamins and minerals.

But no matter how we try to fill the body with vitamins, nutrients are not retained for a long time. And the body needs to be replenished with them both in summer and winter.

Using modern freezers, you can freeze meat, fish, cherries, currants, plums, green pea, asparagus beans, carrot. Frozen vegetables and fruits will help housewives prepare nutritious food in winter and spring.

Cauliflower has an edge among vegetables. It is highly valued for its large amount of vitamins, plant minerals.

Cauliflower is a low-calorie product. 100 grams of cabbage contains 2.5 grams of protein, 0.3 grams of fat, 4.2 grams of carbohydrates, only 330 kcal.

Cauliflower is a storehouse of vitamins and minerals:

• vitamin C is three times more than in white cabbage
• contains iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium
• is a source of pectin and vegetable protein
• supports the immune system in spring
• protects against colds
• contains tartronic acid, which burns fat

It is used in cooking for stews, soups, casseroles, as a side dish. Cauliflower can be boiled, fried, stewed. It doesn't take long to cook cabbage dishes.

Housewives are interested in is it possible to freeze cauliflower for the winter and how to freeze it correctly.

Cauliflower is a great food to freeze in the home freezer. It keeps well at low temperatures. Frozen vegetable preserves appearance, keeping useful elements to the maximum.

How to properly freeze cauliflower for the winter

Preparing cauliflower for freezing

1. Rinse under running water.
2. Soak for 20-25 minutes in saline solution (10 grams of salt per liter of water) to get rid of insects.
3. Cut off the green leaves with a sharp knife.
4. Divide, with a knife, the vegetable into inflorescences, removing the coarse stems.
5. Think in advance of what the frozen inflorescences will be used for and how to cut them, small or large.
6. You can freeze separately several bags with large inflorescences for making puree soup and several with small umbrellas.

To preserve frozen cabbage at home, disposable bags, plastic containers, vacuum bags with a fastener are suitable.

Methods for freezing cauliflower for the winter

Method 1... Freezing of fresh inflorescences without thermal effect.

Method 2... Blanching.

Freezing fresh inflorescences without thermal effect

This is the easiest freezing method and takes very little time to cook.

Blanching

With the help of blanching, substances that negatively affect the vegetable are destroyed in the inflorescences. Under the influence of these substances, the inflorescences, when frozen, become soft, lose their color and aroma.

1. Put the washed cabbage under running water in a bowl with saline solution for 20-25 minutes.
2. Rinse again with water.
3. On a cutting board, with your hands or with a knife, divide the head into inflorescences.
4. Boil water in a large saucepan.
5. Send ready-made inflorescences in boiled water for 2-3 minutes.
6. To prepare complementary foods for an infant, blanch the inflorescences for 5–8 minutes.
7. Send the inflorescences with a slotted spoon to a bowl with cold water and ice for 3-5 minutes.
8. Put the finished inflorescences on a paper towel after blanching to get rid of excess moisture.
9. Arrange dried pieces on a tray and send for preliminary freezing.
10. Transfer the frozen inflorescences to disposable bags or special plastic containers for food.
11. Send hermetically sealed dishes, bags with removed air back to the freezer for complete freezing.

Advice the right choice and freezing cabbage for baby food

• manually divide the head into inflorescences
• use the upper inflorescences for freezing
• put in a bowl with salt water for half an hour
• rinse under running water
• blanch for 10 minutes
• spread out on a tray until completely dry
• to wrap up
• send packaged cabbage bags to the freezer

How to properly store cauliflower in the freezer for the winter

Duration of retention in the freezer depends on the temperature.

• At 6 degrees below zero, can be stored for 2 to 4 weeks.
• At a temperature reduced to 12 degrees, store for 3 months.
• At temperatures from -16 degrees and above, keep for 9 months.

You can freeze inflorescences for the winter only once, secondary freezing is not recommended.

To preserve the cauliflower better, draw out all the air from the bags using the inserted straw.

Do not re-blanch frozen blanched flowers. When preparing a dish, one must remember that such inflorescences are prepared faster.

How to defrost properly

In order for frozen cabbage to look beautiful in dishes, you need to defrost it correctly.

1 way. Remove from the freezer and leave to defrost completely at room temperature.

Method 2. Remove from the chamber and put in boiling water or steam.

Do not use microwave for defrosting.

Compliance with the rules for freezing cauliflower for the winter will provide an excellent opportunity to often prepare delicious food in winter.