How long can you store boiled beets in the refrigerator?

Housewives are very concerned about a natural question: how long can boiled beets be stored in the refrigerator? What is the best way to prepare and package it so that it remains beautiful and usable for as long as possible?

How to store boiled beets in the refrigerator?

After cooking, vegetables usually lose most of their nutrients - but not beets. Of course, one cannot do without partial destruction of vitamin C here, but there are still a number of useful compounds that are not affected by heat treatment. Cooked beetroot (as beets are called in the south) retains its healing qualities and at the same time is much tastier than raw beets. The only pity is that such a product cannot be stored for a long time.

If you decide in advance to leave the boiled root vegetable in reserve, you need to remember the following rules:

• After cooking, the water from the pan must be drained immediately. The longer the product remains in hot liquid, the less chance it has of long-term storage. In addition, the vegetable will lose its bright burgundy color and lose many useful qualities.
• Without refrigeration, at room temperature, the cooked vegetable will last about 12 hours without spoiling. The beetroot must be dried without removing the peel, transferred to a dry pan and covered with a lid.
• Peeled and cut into pieces beets will keep much shorter in the refrigerator than peeled beets. Therefore, in order to increase shelf life, you should not clean all the root vegetables at once in advance.It is better to clean them as needed and put the remaining ones in the refrigerator. However, the purified product will remain perfectly fine for 24 hours on the refrigerator shelf if it is first placed in a sealed container, or even better, in a vacuum bag.
• Boiled beets in their peels can be stored at temperatures from +6°C to +10°C for 10 days. This is the maximum indicator and it depends on various factors: variety, quality of preparation, features of the refrigerator. An indispensable condition is to keep it in a closed container or a special bag that limits the access of oxygen.

During the entire time that beetroot is stored, it is necessary to periodically look into the bag and check the condition of the product. This will save you from unpleasant surprises, and at the most inopportune moment it will not turn out that the vegetable is unsuitable for use.

Storing beets in the freezer

Raw beets can be stored for several months in a cellar or basement. This is an incredibly shelf-stable product that does not require special storage conditions - as long as there is no frost and strong humidity. However, residents of city apartments are often deprived of the opportunity to keep large supplies of fresh vegetables and are forced to resort to the help of freezers.

How long boiled beets can be stored in the freezer depends on several factors:

• temperature in the chamber;
• root crop varieties;
• cooking method.

At a temperature of -10°C, the shelf life of beets will be no more than 3 months. If the chamber is -20°C, vegetables are stored longer - up to six months. At the same time, they retain quite a lot of useful substances, although less than in freshly cooked root vegetables.

Before freezing, root vegetables are boiled, peeled, cut into cubes, slices or grated on a coarse grater and placed in sealed bags or food containers.

Any product, and especially beets, cannot be frozen twice. When vegetables are re-frozen, they lose all remaining beneficial properties.

Experienced housewives pack vegetables prepared for freezing into small “one-time use” bags and indicate on the bag the date the preparation was placed in the freezer. This will make it easy to track when the frozen product expires.

Boiled beets are perfectly stored in the refrigerator and freezer, and almost do not lose their taste and aesthetic qualities. If you need to quickly prepare herring under a fur coat, borscht, or add a vegetable to some salad, it is very convenient to have such a preparation at home. The main thing is to properly package the product and comply with storage conditions.