How to freeze strawberries properly?

Many of us love juicy, sweet strawberries. Unfortunately, their season lasts very short, less than a month. Therefore, housewives try to prepare berries for the future. To preserve all the taste and benefits, you need to know some rules and tricks that will help you pamper your loved ones with fragrant strawberries all winter.

Properly frozen strawberries (or, more correctly, garden strawberries) contain all the same substances as a fresh crop. The only condition: after defrosting, it must be eaten immediately so that it does not lose vitamins and trace elements in its composition. Experts note that frozen berries have significantly fewer calories, which means they are excellent for dietary nutrition.

Strawberries are rich in vitamin C, phosphorus and calcium, iodine, pectin, iron and folic acid. A valuable complex of minerals makes this product simply magical in its effects and benefits. It is useful to eat strawberries for anemia, atherosclerosis, thyroid diseases, during epidemics of influenza and SARS.

Antioxidants in its composition prolong the youth of the body. These berries in moderation can be eaten by pregnant women to prevent swelling. It will help to get rid of carcinogens in the body of smokers due to the large amount of organic acids. Scarlet berries also help those who monitor weight and want to lose weight.They normalize metabolism and have a positive effect on intestinal motility.

Strawberries are unlikely to harm the body when consumed in moderation. But with hypertension, gout, and people with food allergies, it should be eaten with caution. And you should completely abandon the berries for patients with an ulcer or gastritis, especially at the stage of exacerbation. Small grains that irritate the mucous membranes of the gastrointestinal tract can become dangerous for them.

But not every housewife knows for sure whether it is necessary to wash the berries before harvesting for the winter or not. There is a rule here: if strawberries are purchased, then it is necessary to wash them. Do this by dropping the berries in a colander into a pot of warm water. The smaller the layer, the better the strawberries will be washed. It is not worth keeping it in water for a long time. Immediately spread on a dry towel and after half an hour of drying, they begin to freeze.

After that, carefully remove the tails with your fingers or a ceramic knife. Using a metal tool may cause reaction with the berry, resulting in oxidation and loss of some of the nutrients.

Berries from your site can not be washed, but only treated with a cool jet from an ordinary home hair dryer. At the same time, it is better to collect berries in dry weather after five in the evening. They are frozen in small portions, as they quickly deteriorate when plucked.Processing should ideally take place one to two hours after collection.

It is better to choose medium-sized and rather dry berries for subsequent freezing, leaving large and juicy ones for eating live or making jam. They should be with a glossy surface, without dents and stains.

There are various ways to store berries in the refrigerator or freezer. The choice of one or another preservation option without cooking depends on the required shelf life, further purposes of use and the volume of the freezing container. In the freezer at home, strawberries are usually frozen whole in their pure form. Billets are also made with the addition of sugar or powdered sugar. You can also save the berries in a chopped form with a blender. In this case, a delicious puree is obtained with or without added sugar.

To properly freeze strawberries for the winter, it is better to store it in a special freezer at a temperature of about -16 degrees. You should decide on the choice of container. It is optimal if these are portioned containers for single use. That is, the berries after defrosting should be used and not subjected to re-freezing. For this purpose, small plastic disposable cups or even jars of yogurt, sour cream and other products are suitable.

When there is not enough freezer space, ordinary bags and plastic containers are used.To do this, a bag is lined at the bottom of any suitable container and strawberries are placed there. Keep it in the freezer for 1-2 hours. When the berries are frozen, the bag is simply removed from the mold, and the container itself is closed as tightly as possible, squeezing out all the remaining air. In the same way, they act to prepare for the future a mashed berry with a lack of space.

Storage methods using sugar or powdered sugar are well known. To do this, pre-treated and peeled strawberries are kept for several hours in the refrigerator. Then sprinkled, already frozen, with sand and again sent to the freezer. A glass of sand is taken per kilogram of berries. When harvesting with powdered sugar, you can not sprinkle strawberries with layers of it, but only dip the ends cleared of greens into the powder so that they do not wind up and are not oxidized by air.

Often housewives use freezing berries with briquettes, since with this method the workpiece takes up the least space in the refrigerator. And sugar as a preservative extends the shelf life of strawberries.

Per kilogram of berries take from half a glass to a glass of sand - depending on taste preferences. The berries are washed through a plastic colander in warm water and laid out to dry for 20-30 minutes on a clean cotton towel. After drying the strawberries in this way, each berry is cut into four parts and placed in a glass, plastic or enameled container, sprinkling each layer with sugar. In this form, it is left for a day so that the berries give juice.Then the juice is drained and frozen separately (or immediately used for food). Berries with sand are ground with a pulper by hand or with a blender. Prepare a dry, clean container and cling film or clean bags. The film or bag is carefully covered in a container, covering the bottom and walls, leaving rather long releases.

The resulting mass from the blender is poured into a container, closed and sent for a day in the refrigerator. After the strawberry puree has frozen, the briquette is removed from the container, tightly tied or wrapped, and placed back in the freezer for storage.

A very tasty and healthy dessert can be prepared by making your own homemade ice cream with banana and condensed milk. All you need is a blender and three ingredients: strawberries, banana and condensed milk. Eating such a delicacy is not only tasty, but also healthy.

If the berries were not previously frozen, and you are using fresh strawberries, then they must be washed, dried and peeled. Then, together with a banana peeled and cut into thick circles, we place it in the freezer for two hours. For two bananas take about 20 medium-sized berries. Then we take out the ingredients and, without defrosting, pour them into the blender bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of condensed milk there and grind everything to a puree consistency. We lay out the resulting workpiece in portioned forms or vases and freeze.

Always defrost such a portion that will be eaten on the same day. Don't over-freeze strawberries. It will lose not only commercial qualities, but also most of its useful substances.

On the night before the expected day of defrosting, the berries are taken out of the freezer into the compartment of the refrigerator for storing fresh fruit. Then in the morning they take it out, and the strawberries thaw already at room temperature.

When freezing strawberries, it's good to know some of the intricacies of the process. They will help to better preserve the crop and avoid unpleasant misunderstandings.

• It is better if the volume of the freezer is large, and the berries are frozen not in one briquette, but in separate one-time portions.
• Strawberries are not stored on the same shelf or in the same chamber with fish and meat.
• For freezing, it is necessary to choose dark red varieties, this is usually a hybrid mixture with strawberries. Early, very juicy berries are better used for other purposes.
• Berry picking is carried out in dry weather early in the morning before dew falls or before sunset in the evening.
• The sieve for washing berries should be plastic. With a metal container, the surface of the berries enters into an acid reaction, and the strawberries darken.
• It is good to freeze whole berries in a small number of layers - no more than two if there is space in the freezer.
• After washing, the berries are not dried until completely dry. Leave water to drain from the berries on a towel for a maximum of an hour.
• When choosing a storage method, the end use of the berries plays a key role. Therefore, you first need to decide in what form strawberries will be eaten.
• You should remember about the shelf life of strawberries, so as not to get harm to health. Subject to all storage standards in the freezer at a temperature of -16 to -18 degrees, the berries are stored for about six months.

Use these little tricks and freeze berries the right way.So you can easily extend the strawberry season and please your loved ones with healthy, sweet berries that will become a real exotic in the dead of winter.

See below for how to freeze strawberries properly.