Thanks to modern freezers, various fruits and vegetables are available to us throughout the entire year. When freezing vegetables and storing them in the freezer, it is important to know how to prepare and store the vegetables.
In addition, one should know that for some types of vegetables is not recommended to keep frozen.
Fresh and chopped vegetables
Some types of vegetables only need to be washed, chopped and packed in freezer. For those vegetables, freezing and thawing is plain and simple.
The vegetables that do not require additional treatment before freezing are onions and peppers. Chop these vegetable and store them in bags and simply put in the freezer.
It is especially important for onions to be well packed, optionally in duplicate bags, in order to avoid the strong smell being transferred to other foods in the freezer.
Blanched vegetables
Before packing in the freezer vegetables generally should be blanched. Blanching is done by the washing the vegetables soaked in hot water for 2-5 minutes. After blanching, the vegetables should be cooled and packed in plastic boxes or bags and placed in freezer.
For beans, broccoli, peas, corn, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach and green vegetables nutritionists argue whether they should blanched.
Cooked vegetables
Before freezing, you should cook the following vegetables: turnips, squash, parsley, sweet potatoes, carrots (mashed carrots) … After cooking and cooling this vegetable should be packed in bags or something similar.
If the carrots are cooked and not mashed, it is not recommended to store them in a freezer.
What should not be frozen?
Some types of vegetables should not be stored in the freezer because they lose their shape and beneficial characteristics.
It is not advised to freeze the following vegetables: beets, carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, blue tomato, lettuce, leeks, potatoes, radishes, zucchini and asparagus.
It is worth noting that the vegetables should preferably be kept up to 6 months frozen in the freezer. Green beans, broccoli, peas, tomato and parsley can be kept for more than six months in the freezer, but no longer than 12 months. Too long storage of the vegetables in the freezer is not recommended, because they lose useful characteristic, and some foods can be even harmful to health after too long storage in the freezer.
It is important to state the fact that defrosted food should not be refrozen. Thawing and re-freezing process makes ingredients lose the useful characteristics and can even lead to food spoilage.