Cooking borscht in winter and summer is always different. After all, in the summer, fresh tomatoes, zucchini and bell peppers are added to your favorite dish. In winter, vegetables are expensive, and not every housewife can afford to add such ingredients to borscht. Therefore, freezing for preparing borscht for the winter has long been mastered by experienced housewives, and most of them make this preparation immediately with beets.
Features of freezing borscht dressing for the winter
Pre-prepared dressing significantly reduces the cooking time of your favorite dish in the winter. Now you don’t need to chop vegetables and then simmer until done, because everything is already included in the dressing. The borscht preparation is simply defrosted and added to the prepared broth with cabbage and potatoes.
Important! To prepare the dressing, only fresh raw ingredients are used.
Boiled frozen beets are suitable for making salads and vinaigrettes, but they are not added to borscht.
Required Ingredients
Every housewife probably has her own signature recipe for preparing her favorite dish. Therefore, when choosing ingredients for freezing, you should proceed from the tastes and preferences of the family. Some people add celery root or parsley to borscht, while others cannot stand their taste.
Let's look at basic frozen recipes that you can adapt at any time to suit yourself and add your favorite ingredients to them.
To prepare the preparation you will need the following vegetables:
- Root vegetables of carrots and beets - 0.7 kilograms each.
- Tomatoes and multi-colored sweet peppers - 0.7 kilograms each.
- Onion heads - 0.7 kilograms.
- Tomato paste.
- Herbs and spices are added to taste.
- Salt, sugar, pepper are added as desired.
Advice! The ratio of different dressing ingredients is indicated approximately; each housewife adds vegetables and seasonings at her own discretion.
How to freeze borscht correctly
To begin with, the ingredients of the dressing are thoroughly washed under running water and peeled. The seeds and membranes of the peppers are removed, and the tomatoes are peeled if desired. To do this, vegetables are cut, scalded with hot water and the skin is removed.
Now we choose the method of grinding the ingredients.Some people like vegetables cut into strips, while others like them into cubes. Also, root vegetables for borscht are often passed through a grater, and the tomatoes are crushed in a blender.
The crushed components of the workpiece are mixed, seasoned with paste and spices, and laid out in portioned bags or containers. Now the mixture for preparing aromatic borscht is ready for long-term storage in the freezer.
If the housewife is accustomed to adding stewed or fried vegetables to borscht, then before freezing the mixture is placed in a frying pan with vegetable oil, seasoned with spices and tomato paste, and brought to readiness. After the dressing has cooled, it is divided into portions and frozen.
Advice! For storage, send portions for one preparation of borscht, so as not to defrost the remaining preparations.
In what container should the workpiece be stored?
To store the workpiece, it is best to use small plastic bags with ziplocks or special portion containers. By packing the mixture in this way, you will not have to defrost the entire winter preparation.
Sliced vegetables release a juice that, when frozen, clumps the ingredients together into one big, unsightly lump. To prevent such a problem from happening, during the first 3-4 hours that vegetables are in the freezer, shake the bags or containers once every 30-40 minutes. This procedure will prevent the ingredients from turning the mixture into one big lump.
Terms and conditions of storage
Store the prepared dressing in refrigerators or freezers at a temperature not exceeding -18 degrees. If the temperature is maintained, vegetables can be stored in this state for up to a year. If for some reason the freezer has defrosted, you should try to use the dressing as soon as possible.If vegetables are re-frozen, the appearance and taste of the ingredients will deteriorate, which will lead to the loss of beneficial components and vitamins.
Defrosting rules
10-15 minutes before preparing borscht, remove frozen vegetables from the freezer and defrost. If the housewife fries the dressing before adding it to the first dish, then 5 minutes is enough for defrosting. The already fried, frozen dressing is taken out of the freezer 20-30 minutes before adding it to the borscht.
It is not recommended to defrost and refreeze the product, so as not to lose the appearance and taste of the ingredients.
By preparing borscht preparation for the winter, the housewife will facilitate the process of preparing her favorite dish and significantly reduce labor costs.
