How to freeze eggplant for the winter - top 3 recipes

To make the menu happy with the richness of taste and variety year-round, the housewives are not lazy and harvest the summer harvest in various ways, among which freezing stands apart. Try freezing eggplant for the winter. There are at least three recipes for delicious billets, and the eggplant lies in the freezer for a long time and retains all its valuable qualities.

Eggplant selection and standard freezing rules

The hostess is faced with the task of preserving the surplus of the summer harvest as tasty and healthy as possible. A modern freezer gives this opportunity: slices of vegetables after a few months in the cold remain appetizing and vitamin.

Important
To get a nutritious cake mix, use the express freeze 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. Eggplant and other vegetables are harmful to repeated freezing - they lose all taste and shape.

First you need to select the right vegetables for freezing:

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

Before freezing eggplant, one important rule should be learned: without preliminary heat treatment, it is better not to try to keep it until winter! After thawing, it dries, the taste becomes bitter. Therefore, do not be lazy and consider the recommendations in the instructions below.

TOP 3 ways to freeze eggplant

Preliminary heat treatment of products actually simplifies the life of the hostess: such semi-finished products are very quickly prepared after defrosting and added to many dishes. By storing eggplant according to these recipes, you save time and provide yourself with a varied menu.

Tip
Soaking eggplant in salted water removes excess bitterness from the pulp and draws out excess nitrates. Salt or immerse the already sliced ​​fruit or whole eggplant in salt water. After salting, wash the fruit again for an hour.

Blanch

The easiest way to cook eggplant is blanching. Brief treatment with boiling water or steam will destroy the minimum of vitamins, but 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 harvest after harvest, so it will be more useful.
2. Remove the ponytail and some flesh around it.
3. Cut the fruit into circles. Thickness - at 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 stew - thicker.
4. Boil water in a saucepan.
5. Place eggplant washed in salt in a colander. Dip everything in boiling water and keep no more than 2-5 minutes. This is blanching.
6. The next step is the quick cooling of the vegetable. Place a colander under a stream of cold water or move everything into a basin of ice water (add ice from the freezer there).
7. Freeze cooled vegetables so that they do not stick together during storage. Dry them first from moisture, and then spread them evenly on a baking sheet.Cover the surface with cling film.
8. Place the pan in the freezer for several hours, setting the lowest possible temperature. When the circles freeze, sprinkle them in portioned packets or containers.
9. Prepare convenient containers so that the contents of each go to prepare one dish. Constantly extracting the common bag at room temperature and returning it to the freezer will ruin the product.
10. Close the container with eggplant very tight so that odors do not penetrate there.

Similarly, diced fruits are cut into cubes, etc.

Baked Eggplant

Baking is the best way to harvest the whole fruit. Even peeling off the peel is optional.

How to deliciously cook baked eggplant for the winter:

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

Tip
Sign the container with the eggplant, so as not to get confused what lies there. Stickers with a packing date will help you remember how long the vegetable should be eaten.

How about frying

Fried eggplant for freezing, winter recipe:

1. Rinse, chop, soak in salt, rinse and dry again - standard procedures.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a pan. You don’t need to pour a lot, just a couple of drops, which are distributed with a special brush.
3. When the oil has warmed up, place the eggplants in a pan evenly.
4. After 5 minutes, carefully flip everything to the other side. Do not stir the fruits so that they do not lose shape ahead of time.
5. Ensure uniform frying on both sides and remove the eggplant from the oil.
6. To wet excess fat will help a paper towel.
7. Distribute the cooled frying into containers or bags. How to achieve the tightness of the container: squeeze the air from the bag by hand or pull it out using a cocktail tube. The denser the eggplant packaging, the better they are stored.
8. It remains only to send everything to the freezer and do not forget to eat on time.

Tip
purityis.decorexpro.com/en/ magazine recalls: eggplant has the ability to absorb other odors, while it does not have a characteristic aroma of its own. So that the porous pulp of the fruit does not absorb the smells of other products during storage, pack the fruit very tightly and place it on a separate vegetable shelf. Avoid the proximity to meat, aromatic herbs, berries.

Shelf life, how to defrost

The maximum shelf life of a summer crop is one year, just before the appearance of a fresh wave of vegetables. But do not delay the preparation of eggplant, otherwise they will lose all the benefits. Usually housewives eat their stocks for six months.

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

What to cook

The menu of thawed eggplant is very diverse. A rare vegetable stew dispenses with this purple vegetable. Many cooks love eggplant in combination with meat. Try to cook a masterpiece of Greek cuisine - moussaka: this is a casserole with minced meat and layers of eggplant and tomatoes.

Pieces after frying will perfectly complement boiled buckwheat. Thin slices are suitable for a hearty pizza. Use sliced ​​snacks, toppings. Very tasty eggplant caviar is also made on the basis of freezing.

Due to the neutral taste, eggplant goes well with many products. If they were properly stored, then the winter menu will not disappoint a single demanding gourmet.In addition, harvesting from the summer is much better than winter goods from greenhouses, which have neither taste nor benefit.