Freezing champignons in the home refrigerator: the best ways

Champignons - one of the most popular mushrooms. They can be harvested for the winter in different ways: pickle, pickle, dry. Some housewives prefer to freeze them. It is very convenient, because mushrooms are always at hand. On any day, you can defrost a portion and prepare an aromatic dish.

Mushroom preparation

Before you freeze the mushrooms in the freezer, you need them properly prepare for this:

• For frosts choose only the freshest mushrooms, bright white, without dents and spots, medium size.
• Mushrooms should be thoroughly rinsed. Some housewives wash them well in cold water without cleaning them. Others recommend doing it in warm water: so the hat and foot will become softer, which will help their quick cleaning.
• Pure mushrooms need to be dried: they are laid out for 20-30 minutes on a napkin until it is completely absorbed. It turns out faster if each mushroom blotted with a paper towel.
• Cut off the excess: the root system and darkened places.

Freeze fresh champignons

For the one who decided to freeze for the first time, the question arises: is it possible to freeze the champignons in their raw form or do they need to be cooked somehow? Experienced housewives willingly harvest fresh mushrooms. It takes a minimum of time, and later you can cook any dish. In fresh-frozen form, they are stored for 1 year at -18 ° C.

Whole

Clean, dried mushrooms are prepared for freezing as follows:

1. If they are small, they can be sent to the entire refrigerator.
2. Fans of stuffed mushrooms can only freeze caps, carefully separating them from the legs.
3. To begin with, the mushrooms are folded in a clean food container, plastic bag or bag with a clip.
4. From the package you need to release the air, close it tightly and place in the freezer.
5. Whole mushrooms can be baked with fish or meat.

Sliced

Usually, sliced ​​mushrooms are used more often than whole ones. When freezing this type of mushroom you need:

1. Washed champignons cut into identical plates.
2. They should not be frozen in bulk, but in a thin layer: frozen pieces are very fragile and can break. To do this, you can use a flat surface, such as a baking sheet, a sheet of foil or a cutting board.
3. Surface with lined mushroom pieces put in the upper section of the freezer, so they quickly froze.
4. After a few hours, when they freeze, they can already be poured into one bag or container and sent back to the freezer.
5. These champignons are perfect for soup, mushroom sauce, potatoes, as a filling for pies and a side dish for meat.

Other freezing methods

How else can you freeze the champignons at home, so that was enough for the whole winter? Boiled and fried.

Boiled

Boiled mushrooms are prepared as follows:

1. Fresh, washed mushrooms are laid out in a saucepan, poured with water, salted and put on the fire.
2. When boiled, boil another 10-15 minutes.
3. Then boiled champignons are poured in a colander to glass the water.
4. When cool and dry, pour the mushrooms into a storage container and put in the freezer.
5. In the boiled form they are stored for six months.

Fried

Even fried champignons can be frozen:

1. To do this, prepared mushrooms should be cut into slices and put on a preheated pan, greased with butter. Salt is not necessary.
2. They should be roasted over medium heat until the moisture is completely evaporated.
3. You can bake them in the oven without butter.
4. The cooled mushrooms should be put into a storage tank and sent to the freezer where they can stay for about 6 months.

How much is stored in the freezer

Mushrooms, like other products, have their own shelf life that depends on storage conditions:

• in the refrigerator in the open form, the mushrooms can lie for 3 days, then they darken, become chapped, it is no longer recommended to eat them;
• under food film at the same temperature, the shelf life is increased to 6 days, after which they become hazardous to health.

But frozen champignons can be stored much longer. At a temperature of -18 ° C, any mushrooms are stored until the next season, and at -20 ° C they can lie longer. In the case of mushrooms, this is not necessary, since they are grown artificially and are commercially available for almost a year.

Usually frozen mushrooms store:

• fresh - 1 year;
• boiled and fried - six months and longer.

How to defrost

So that the products after freezing remain tasty and healthy, they should properly defrost:

• You do not need to defrost the whole batch of mushrooms, but only the necessary portion, because they can not be re-frozen.
• The defrosting process should take place gradually. Therefore, the required amount of champignons is transferred from the freezer to the refrigerator for several hours, preferably overnight.
• For preparing many dishes, for example, for soup or for baking, they do not need to be thawed.

Useful tips

• As experienced housewives advise, in order to freeze champignons correctly, you need to choose only the freshest products. So they will retain all their useful properties.
• Rinse the mushrooms should be under running water, and not soaked so that they do not absorb too much water.
• On a container with frozen mushrooms, you should stick a sticker with the exact date of freezing to monitor the expiration date.
• It is necessary to keep mushrooms in the freezer, spreading them in portions in bags, which are tightly closed, or in a plastic container, preferably vacuum.
• You can not store them with fish and meat, as mushrooms, like a sponge, are well absorbed by any odors.
• Do not store mushrooms in the freezer for too long, they can lose their taste and useful properties.

Freezing champignons at home is not a laborious process and is not complicated at all, which allows enjoying fragrant mushroom dishes all year round.