How to freeze eggplants for the winter - top 3 recipes

To ensure that the menu pleases with richness of taste and variety all year round, housewives are not lazy and prepare the summer harvest in various ways, among which freezing stands out. Try freezing eggplants for the winter. There are at least three recipes for delicious preparations, and eggplant lasts a long time in the freezer and retains all its valuable qualities.

Selection of eggplants and standard freezing rules

The housewife is faced with the task of keeping the summer harvest surplus as tasty and healthy as possible. A modern freezer provides this opportunity: pieces of vegetables remain appetizing and rich in vitamins after several months in the cold.

Important
To get a nutritious semi-finished product, use the express freezing function. To do this, you need to set the minimum temperature for a couple of hours. After the product has hardened, return the standard -18 and make sure that this indicator does not fluctuate. Repeated freezing is harmful for eggplants and other vegetables - they lose all their taste and shape.

First you need to select the right vegetables to freeze.:

1. The fruits must be young but ripe. Overgrown and green eggplants are not suitable. Freshly ripened fruit has the most delicate taste and contains the highest concentration of vitamins.
2. The fruit should have an even color, smooth and shiny skin without damage or stains.
3. If the skin has lost its elasticity and the stalk has dried out, then cook the vegetable fresh. It is not suitable for freezing.

Before freezing eggplants, you should learn one important rule: without preliminary heat treatment, it is better not to try to preserve it until winter! After thawing, it will become damp and the taste will become bitter. Therefore, do not be lazy and take into account the recommendations in the instructions below.

TOP 3 ways to freeze eggplants

Preliminary heat treatment of products actually makes life easier for the housewife: such semi-finished products are prepared very quickly after defrosting and added to many dishes. By stocking eggplant using these recipes, you save time and provide yourself with a varied menu.

Advice
Soaking eggplants in salted water removes excess bitterness from the pulp and draws out excess nitrates. Salt or immerse already chopped fruit or peeled whole eggplant in salt water. After salting for an hour, rinse the fruit again.

Blanching

The easiest way to prepare eggplants is blanching. Brief treatment with boiling water or steam will destroy a minimum of vitamins, but will significantly extend the shelf life of the semi-finished product.

How to freeze blanched pieces:

1. Thoroughly rinse the fruit you just picked from the garden. Always try to prepare the crop after harvesting, so it will retain more benefits.
2. Remove the tail and some of the pulp around it.
3. Cut the fruit into slices. Thickness is your choice, it all depends on the dishes that will be prepared in the future. For baking pizza, it is better to make thin slices, for stews - thicker ones.
4. Boil water in a saucepan.
5. Place the eggplants, rinsed from salt, in a colander. Place everything in boiling water and keep for no more than 2-5 minutes. This is blanching.
6. The next stage is rapid cooling of the vegetable.Place a colander under running cold water or place everything in a bowl of ice water (add ice from the freezer there).
7. Freeze cooled vegetables to prevent them from sticking together during storage. First, dry them from moisture, and then spread them in an even layer on a baking sheet. Cover the surface with cling film.
8. Place the pan in the freezer for several hours, setting it to the lowest temperature possible. When the circles are frozen, pour them into portioned bags or containers.
9. Prepare convenient containers so that the contents of each are used to prepare one dish. Constantly taking the bulk bag out to room temperature and putting it back in the freezer will ruin the product.
10. Close the container with eggplants very tightly so that foreign odors do not penetrate there.

Fruits cut into cubes, etc., are frozen in the same way.

Baked eggplant

Roasting is the best way to prepare whole fruits. You don't even need to peel the skin.

How to deliciously prepare baked eggplant for the winter:

1. Rinse the peel, wipe with napkins and grease with vegetable oil.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
3. Place the eggplants on a baking sheet and bake for half an hour. Do not allow the peel to burn; it is better to turn the fruit on the other side once.
4. Be sure to cool vegetables before freezing.
5. Pack individually in freezer bags. All eggplants can be placed in one container if they are individually packaged.

Advice
Label containers with eggplants so you don’t get confused about what’s in there. Stickers with the packing date will help you remember by what date the vegetable should be eaten.

How about roasting

Fried eggplants for freezing, recipe for the winter:

1. Wash, cut, soak in salt, rinse again and dry - standard procedures.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan. You don’t need to pour a lot, a couple of drops are enough, which you distribute with a special brush.
3. When the oil is hot, place the eggplants in the pan in an even layer.
4. After 5 minutes, carefully turn everything over to the other side. There is no need to stir the fruits so that they do not lose their shape ahead of time.
5. Achieve even frying on both sides and remove the eggplants from the oil.
6. A paper napkin will help blot up excess fat.
7. Distribute the cooled roast into containers or bags. How to achieve a sealed container: squeeze the air out of the bag with your hands or pull it out using a cocktail straw. The tighter the packaging of eggplants, the better they are stored.
8. All that remains is to put everything in the freezer and remember to eat it on time.

Advice
The magazine purity-en.htgetrid.com reminds: eggplant has the ability to absorb other odors, but it does not have a characteristic aroma of its own. To prevent the porous pulp of the fruit from absorbing the odors of other products during storage, pack the fruit very tightly and place it on a separate vegetable shelf. Avoid proximity to meat, aromatic herbs, and berries.

Expiration date, how to defrost

The maximum shelf life of the summer harvest is one year, just before a fresh wave of vegetables appears. But don’t delay cooking the eggplants, otherwise they will lose all their benefits. Housewives usually eat up their supplies within six months.

Cooking eggplants is very convenient: they do not require long defrosting. Moreover, they are placed in the freezer after heat treatment.Eggplants in any dish will quickly reach the desired consistency, add them last.

What to cook

The menu of defrosted eggplants is very varied. Rare vegetable stew is complete without this purple vegetable. Many chefs love eggplant in combination with meat. Try making a masterpiece of Greek cuisine - moussaka: a casserole with minced meat and layers of eggplant and tomatoes.

After frying, the pieces will ideally complement boiled buckwheat. Thin slices are suitable for hearty pizza. Use the slices in appetizers and fillings. Very tasty eggplant caviar is also made from freezing.

Eggplants, due to their neutral taste, go well with many foods. If they were stored properly, then the winter menu will not disappoint any demanding gourmet. In addition, preparations from the summer are much better than winter goods from greenhouses, which have neither taste nor benefit.