Is it possible to freeze gooseberries for the winter: the most useful preparations

It’s easy to freeze gooseberries for the winter. You will spend about an hour, but get a tasty, fragrant and healthy preparation. These berries contain vitamins A, B, C, as well as iron, phosphorus and other nutrients, which are so lacking in winter.

How to prepare gooseberries for freezing?

Let's start with the selection of berries. Light greenish fruits will give a sour taste, and dark ones - from amber yellow to wine red - will be very sweet, with a touch of kiwi or grapes. Think about what you are going to cook in the winter from berries, so choose the gooseberry variety.

Getting started, prepare:

• colander or strainer;
• towels for drying berries;
• comfortable small scissors - for children or manicure;
• a sheet for freezing (comes with many models of freezers) or any suitable baking sheet;
• plastic containers of small height, square or rectangular, or plastic bags.

Choose containers of small size - such that they densely fill the space of the freezer.

We begin with the fact that we pick gooseberry berries collected early in the morning, while discarding bursted, ripe and spoiled ones. Then, with scissors, we cut off the tips and tails from the berries.

We thoroughly rinse the prepared fruits with a sieve or colander with clean cold water and allow them to dry on towels - they should absorb excess moisture.

Freezing process

We place gooseberries on a special sheet for freezing in one layer. It will be even better if the fruits do not touch each other - the berries will turn out one in one, smooth and beautiful. After this, the workpiece is sent to the freezer, turning on the “quick freeze” mode (usually -23 degrees Celsius). The larger the berries, the longer the freezing: for small varieties - about 60 minutes, for large - up to 1.5–2 hours.

We take out the frozen berries and quickly fill them with containers. If we pack them in plastic bags, then we put 500-600 g each, but more can be done if the family likes to enjoy gooseberry desserts.

It is important to stack the fruits so that you get exactly one portion from the freezer. Gooseberry - a delicate berry, it does not tolerate repeated freezing.

We clean the blanks in the freezer - now they are ready for use.

But this is the easiest option. If you want to pamper your family with delicacies, try making frozen gooseberries in sugar or syrup.

Gooseberries in sugar

Preparation for freezing is similar to the previous method: wash, dry, clean my berries. And then pour sugar with the calculation of 1 kg of gooseberry 300 g of sugar. After that, gently mix, place in small containers with tight-fitting lids and place in the freezer.

For acidic gooseberry varieties, you can increase the amount of sugar, for sweet varieties, on the contrary, reduce it. This method is suitable for baking, stewed fruit, candied fruit, and also guarantees maximum preservation of all nutrients.

Gooseberry in syrup

Arrange washed, dried, sorted berries in containers so as to fill their volume by 2/3. Then proceed to the preparation of the syrup:

1. Pour a liter of water into the pan.
2. Add 0.5 kg of sugar and bring to a boil.
3. Do not forget to mix.
4. If the sugar has melted, the syrup is ready. Let it cool to room temperature and pour the spread berries.

Be sure to ensure that the berries are completely covered with syrup - at least 1.5 cm should remain to the edges of the containers.This is due to the fact that any liquid expands upon freezing. If you pour too much syrup, the ice in the center will curl up and you cannot close the lid of the container.

This method is suitable for gooseberries having a thin peel and juicy flesh. If it is thawed correctly, then you can use dessert without further processing, it will be so delicious.

Gooseberry Jam with Orange

This is a dessert with incredible taste and aroma. You will be surprised how gooseberries and oranges are harmoniously combined in jam. And, of course, no heat treatment - all vitamins and minerals will remain in the fruit.

For cooking you will need:

• 1 kg of gooseberries;
• 1.25 kg of sugar;
• 1 medium-sized orange.

Prepare the berries as for a simple freeze, wash the orange and chop.

If you leave the zest, the taste and aroma of citrus in the jam will increase, but a spicy bitterness will appear. Not everyone likes her.

Then put the berries and orange in a blender, add sugar and chop everything until smooth. If there is no blender, you can use a meat grinder. Install a mesh with small holes on it - so you get the desired degree of grinding.

First, cool the resulting mass in the refrigerator (this one will take about an hour and a half). Then lay the workpiece in sealed containers. Fill the jam to the edge of the container by about 1.5 cm: the frozen mass will slightly increase in volume.

All is ready. Now the jam can be frozen.

Shelf life and defrost rules

Frozen foods can be stored for a long time, but not forever. It all depends on the temperature:

• up to 2 months, you can store frozen berries at a temperature of -5-6 ^aboutFROM;
• up to 6 months - at -10-15^aboutFROM;
• more than six months - at -15–20^aboutFROM.

Before eating berries, of course, you need to defrost. The ideal option is to put the container on the top shelf of the refrigerator. So the workpiece will melt, preserving the maximum benefit and taste. Gooseberries defrost much faster at room temperature. But in this case, he loses more juice and looks messy.

The fastest option is defrosting in the microwave (Defrost mode). Alas, in this case there will be no vitamins in the berries.