How to freeze spinach at home? There are several ways, and each of them is good in its own way. We will talk about everyone, and you will choose the method that suits you personally.

Leaflet preparation

Anyone who has ever bought or grown spinach with their own hands is well aware: there is a lot of fine sand and dust on the leaves. Sometimes aphids squat. Therefore, the first thing to do is to carefully sort out the greens. Then, thoroughly rinse the spinach in several waters. Now you need to dry the blades and sort into small or large. After all, they are frozen in various forms. And only then they proceed directly to the process.

Tip. Throw the spinach into a colander or strainer, so it dries faster.

Freeze small spinach

Small leaflets are often used in their entirety. But, if you lay out each burlap separately on the freezer or freeze the cut ones, then a lot of space will be required. Experienced housewives have long come up with one trick. It will be required:

• any bobbin thread or stationery gum
• cutting board or baking sheet
• cling film
• small spinach leaves

Each petal has a petiole cut off (do not throw it away). Then the leaves are stacked in piles of 7-9 pieces. Each such pile is folded into a tight roll and fixed with an elastic band or thread. But only so that later it would be fashionable to remove this fortification quickly. Now the cutting board is covered with cling film. Prepared rolls are laid on top at intervals, and sent to the freezer for about 8 hours.

After this time, spinach is removed from the freezer, quickly remove the gum or thread. Frozen rolls will not turn around. They can be packed tightly in a container or bag. Such spinach is stored for about 11 months.

Frozen Blanched Spinach

If you have a very tiny freezer, and you want to freeze spinach at home, that’s the way out. You need to pre-blanch leaflets. How to do it right? Some sources recommend spinach boil for 2 minutes. What a terrible mistake! After this treatment, you will freeze a simple silo, without vitamins and minerals. Indeed, even pouring boiling water already draws out useful substances from the burdock. Let not all, but nonetheless. Therefore, take note:

• In a large saucepan, place cold water with crushed ice.
• On the stove is another pan with boiling water (3 L) and soda on the tip of a knife.
• Lay the spinach in small portions in a sieve or colander.
• Dip in boiling water for 15-18 seconds.
• Quickly take out and dip in water with ice, for about 20-22 seconds.
• Take out the greens, let the water drain a little and transfer to a gauze stretched over a wide bowl.

The last action will allow excess water to drain while you are working on the next batch of spinach. Now you need to take prepared leaflets directly with your hands and ... crumple them. Do not regret, clench your fist harder. The finished lump is placed on a board covered with cling film or a silicone mat. Then they leave it in the freezer for 4 hours to freeze the upper layers.

Tip. We recommend blanching spinach before freezing for greens who have kidney problems. During this treatment, a significant part of oxalic acid goes into the water, and you can safely use leaflets for food.

Freeze large spinach

It happens that the leaves grow especially large, or get such greens that you can’t twist them especially into rolls. And when defrosting burdock in a plate, few people will like it. Throw away a pity. What to do? Freeze of course!

Procedure:

1. Prepared large spinach leaves and petioles from small (remember, we left?) Blanch, as described above.
2. DO NOT lower them into ice water!
3. Hot spinach is passed through a meat grinder or mashed with a blender.
4. During this time, the mass will practically cool.
5. It is laid out on ice molds or poured onto a flat wide plate wrapped in film (to make a pancake about 1.2-1.4 cm thick.
6. Sent to the freezer for 12 hours.

After the specified time, cubes of frozen spinach puree are poured into a bag and put back into the freezer. You can also make several pancakes and stack them on top of each other. In winter, it remains only to break off a piece of the right size.

Such a blank is perfectly stored for almost 5 months.

Tip. Silicone baking dishes can be used. From them it is then very easy to take out the freeze.

Freeze special spinach

To maximize the preservation of most vitamins and nutrients, spinach is added at the end of cooking. But leaflets acquire a special taste and aroma in combination with butter. And how to mix them in the winter, so as not to jump near the stove with an oiler and a bag from the freezer?

Everything is simple. You need to mix them in the summer! You will need:

• blanched spinach puree
• favorite room temperature butter
• spoon
• molds for freezing or silicone for baking
• sleight of hand and good mood

Then shake the cubes from the molds and put them in a bag or container. Then put it in the freezer and forget it. Remember when you make risotto. Just one cube and your dish will sparkle with new colors.

Unfortunately, even in the freezer, such a preparation is stored for only 3 months. But usually it doesn’t lie so much, it ends quickly.

Tip. Add some of your favorite greens here. Spinach will not deteriorate at all, and the aroma will be stunning.

Now you know all the ways to freeze spinach at home. It remains only to compose a menu and treat household members with the most valuable vitamin greens.

Video: how to prepare spinach for the winter

How to freeze spinach, ways to save spinach for the winter

Spinach is a storehouse of nutrients that are beneficial to the human body. This plant has collected such microelements as saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, B vitamins, beta-carotene and many others. It improves metabolism, due to which it helps to reduce body weight. For many housewives, this garden culture is an indispensable ingredient in countless dishes: sauces, soups, flour products. In addition, spinach has an interesting and pleasant property: in the process of preparation, it acquires a very rich and pleasant taste when compared with fresh leaves. If it is necessary to maintain favorable properties, it is recommended to freeze a certain amount of the plant, which will allow it to be used at any time of the year if desired. So it can be stored for a long time, and the freezing process itself is quite easy.

Freezing spinach for the winter: the easiest way

1. Sort, separate low-quality leaves, rinse and drain them. For drying, you can use thick napkins or waffle towels.
2. Cut the leaves into thin long strips, and then place them in plastic trays or bags in batches, for the convenience of defrosting them in the future.
3. Send the spinach sorted by containers to the freezer. If possible, you should set the quick freeze mode.

The method of flooding with water

Repeat the previous steps with one difference: before freezing, fill the product in the trays with cold boiled water to the top of the product. It is frozen in accordance with the shape of the tray. When defrosting, boil in melted water.

Freeze grated spinach in a blender

1. Drain unnecessary water from a steamed or boiled plant, grind in a blender or rub through a sieve.
2. Lay the resulting mashed potatoes on trays, plastic cups or bags, allow to cool to room temperature, cover or cover with a thin layer of cling film, freeze. If as a result it is not necessary to obtain a dense mashed potato - the boiled product can not be filtered.

It turns out ice cream spinach sheet slices or portioned puree, the volume of which is quite enough for any culinary delights. A frozen product stores most of its beneficial properties and does not deteriorate for quite some time.

The method of freezing boiled spinach

1. Pour chopped spinach with water (10-15% of the mass of the leaves themselves), cook for 5-7 minutes.
2. Allow to cool to room temperature. If a thick product is needed at the outlet, it should be filtered, packaged and frozen. The remaining broth can be used at your discretion (for example, prepare vegetable soup). Strain the broth - an optional procedure, after cooling, the vegetable can be frozen and with the broth. Instead of boiling, you can process it with boiling water for 4-5 minutes, while lowering the leaves into boiling water using a net or colander.

Other ways to preserve the product for the winter

Freezing is not the only way to store this plant. There are several other methods.

Pickling

Pickling: rinse and chop the spinach leaves, place them tightly in sterilized jars, at the same time, pour it out and lay tightly. The required amount of salt is 10% by weight of the leaves. In addition to spinach, other foods can also be salted in this way: parsley, sorrel, dill. Each of these ingredients is perfect for making soups and borsch. In a separate tray, you can prepare them together, in the ratio: spinach and sorrel - 50:50, dill and parsley - up to 20% of the total mass. It is necessary to store in the refrigerator’s freezer or in a cold cellar, and at the same time not very long, trying to control their condition. When mold appears on the surface - foods cannot be eaten, especially without reliable heat treatment.

Canning

Wash, chop, spinach or a mixture of it with herbs, pour a small amount of boiling water in a separate pan (25-30% by weight of the products, or to their top point). Spinach contains oxalic acid, which may well replace salt. Boil vegetables and greens for 8-10 minutes, pack in clean, sterilized jars, close, wrap and let cool. This is a fairly reliable and long-term storage method.

Today I will tell and show you, my dear, how to freeze spinach for the winter at home. Everything seems to be simple and clear, but among us there are young hostesses who will definitely find this recipe for homemade preparations for the winter useful.

In step-by-step photos you will see how to freeze spinach in two ways: in the form of mashed potatoes and whole leaves. The fact is that sometimes all kinds of recipes for dishes from frozen spinach imply the use of just such blanks. Well, fresh can be used in almost any recipes.

It must be said that the benefits of spinach can be written for a long, long time - some literary sources even mention it as the king of vegetables. And in fact, spinach is a champion in the content of vitamins and minerals, which are necessary for the proper formation and development of children's bones. That is why, from a young age, teach your kids to healthy homemade food, but remember that spinach is not recommended for people with impaired water-salt metabolism, as well as liver and kidney diseases.

Ingredients:

Cooking in steps with a photo:

To properly freeze spinach for the winter, we need fresh green leaves of this plant. As a rule, spinach is harvested until the plant releases buds of peduncles - at this time a large amount of oxalic acid begins to accumulate. I indicate the mass of fresh spinach, how much I had, and you use the amount that you have.

The longest and, one might say, debilitating stage is the preparation of spinach. Rinse each leaf thoroughly, because there is a lot of sand and aphids on them. To freeze spinach with whole leaves, cut off the stalks - you can not throw them away, but use them for spinach puree. But rinsing everything is very, very important - do not neglect this step.

We put clean leaves in a large pot and pour them with boiling water for a couple of minutes. Leaflets will become soft and significantly reduced in volume.

Then we discard the leaves on a sieve and allow the liquid to drain. When the spinach cools down a bit, we outlive it with our hands - we do not need excess moisture.

Now make a spinach puree to freeze it in the form of a small portioned slice. Just put a part of the leaves in a blender and punch everything until relatively uniform.

Before freezing spinach for the winter, the washed billet should be dried until the water droplets on the surface completely disappear if it is planned to preserve the leaf structure during the harvesting process. To do this, it is better to blow wet leaves with a cold hairdryer.

For harvesting spinach for the winter by freezing, only young plants should be selected, before the peduncle is ejected. By this time, the structure of the greenery is very delicate and it does not manage to gain the characteristic wormwood bitterness.

Whole frozen spinach leaves

1. Sort out the prepared raw materials, cut off the solid sections of the stems.
  2. Fold 10-15 leaves with a fan, so that the edge of one goes on the edge of the other.
  3. Roll up the blank and roll it slightly with your hand to send it to the freezer. It is convenient to use cling film for fixation.
  4. Fold the frozen spinach leaves in a bag or food container for compact storage.

Before cooking, rolls should be removed from the freezer and kept at room temperature until completely thawed.

Pie filling

If you want to prepare chopped spinach for the winter, you should divide the prepared raw materials into portions necessary for a single use. Each hostess can by eye determine how much product is used in one go:

Cut selected and dried leaves with shavings, 0.5 cm thick. In this case, it is better to cut the stems with scissors for greens;
   spread the thin layer on a cutting board, send to the freezer;
   as soon as the spinach freezes, pour it into containers or storage bags.

This preparation is perfect for preparing soups and sauces, for filling culinary products and for stews.

You should know!  Greens frozen for future use can be stored until a new crop, without losing their nutritional value and taste, so you can harvest parsley, dill, and cilantro in this way - whoever loves.

Green cubes

A convenient method of procurement, allowing you to get a product that is completely ready for use. Before freezing the base for the soup puree, properly prepared greens should be properly blanched - in no case should be digested:

Dip clean leaves with stems in boiling water for 1 minute;
recline in a colander and immediately lower it into cold water with ice - this will help stop the heating process and preserve the color of the workpiece;
   grind the cooled mass in a blender or pass through a meat grinder, put in silicone molds or in ice trays;
   send to the freezer, pour in a bag for storage in a day.
  It is convenient to use frozen mashed greens in the preparation of pasta sauces, risotto or as a vitamin and color additive for baking and pancakes.

Boiled Leaf Balls

Heat treatment partially destroys the vitamins in the product, but allows you to form convenient balls or cakes before freezing spinach completely. Which significantly saves space in the freezer:

Pour the prepared leaves without stems with boiling water for 2 minutes;
   remove the greens from the water and immediately lower them into a bowl of ice-cold liquid;
   drain the water, discard the cooled product in a colander;
   to form portioned cakes or small balls from a soft mass;
   put on a cutting board and send to the refrigerator;
   put it in containers or bags with a fastener in a day, having previously released air from them.

Spinach is a product whose taste many do not understand. This vegetable has recently entered our diet, but almost all chefs liked it. This product is well suited as a side dish, base for first courses, omelettes, sauces. In addition, it has a bright green color, so it helps to acquire unusual color solutions for many dishes. Therefore, the question of whether is relevant today. Consider several ways to help preserve all the taste and healthy qualities of this product.

Beneficial features

This vegetable contains a lot of protein and fiber. It is also rich in various nutrients and vitamins, which tend to be destroyed much less when cooked than in other vegetables. Many housewives are therefore interested in,.

Many housewives use spinach in cooking all year round. It is used in a variety of diets, even therapeutic ones. The product has a low calorie content and a large percentage of carotene and iodine, so it is well suited for feeding children. Moreover, scientists have proved that eating spinach helps rid the body of toxins and toxins. But it must be remembered that this vegetable also contains oxalic acid, which in large quantities negatively affects the body. But regular use of it in small doses helps to strengthen all systems of the human body. Therefore, doctors recommend including this vegetable in the diet, which will help maintain health for a long time.

Freezing

Many women know how to prepare spinach for the winter. Freezing  in this case is most popular. This method is quite simple and fast, the vegetable remains almost fresh. To freeze spinach, it is necessary to rinse its leaves well, then cut the cuttings. Washed leaves are laid out on a towel so that they dry out. Next, dry spinach leaves are twisted into tubes and wrapped in cling film, put in a freezer in the compartment for quick freezing, if any. Now we know how to prepare spinach for the winter, freezingin this case, a fairly convenient method. Small pieces are cut from frozen vegetables during cooking. The place of cut is wrapped with foil for further storage.

Fancy cubes

This method is a little time-consuming, but quite effective, since it involves freezing a vegetable with ice. Before that, it is recommended to rinse the vegetable, cut off all unnecessary and dry the leaves. Dry leaves are cut into small pieces, laid in ice molds and filled with cold boiled water. The form is placed in the freezer in the storage department for a long period of time. These interesting cubes can be put with various first courses, sauces or stews. If pasta is supposed to be prepared, then butter is poured into the molds instead of water, which is pre-melted and cooled.

How to prepare spinach for the winter: recipes for sauces

Spinach is great for making a variety of sauces. The main thing is not to re-freeze the vegetable, as it loses all its nutritional properties. To prepare this leafy vegetable for the winter, you need to wash it, cut off everything unnecessary, put it in a blender or food processor and grind everything well until a puree-like consistency is obtained. The resulting mass is put in ice molds and poured with butter, previously melted and cooled. Forms are sent to the freezer for further storage. To prepare sauces, frozen spinach is put in a dish a few minutes before the end of cooking.

Freezing spinach for soups

This method is well suited for those housewives who try to save time for cooking the first dishes. Before you need to prepare it. For this, the leaves of the vegetable are washed and dried, cuttings are cut and cut in the form of noodles. Then the vegetable is boiled in water in a small amount and cooled. Containers for storing vegetables are poured with broth with greens, covered with lids and sent to the freezer. In order to prepare the first dish in the winter, you only need to boil the necessary vegetables and add a pre-frozen spinach broth.

Frozen Mashed Spinach and Arugula

If there is enough space in the refrigerator, then mistresses can prepare mashed potatoes made from boiled arugula and spinach for the winter, which can then be added to different dishes. Before that, leafy vegetables are washed and cut off all unnecessary, then they are dried on a towel. Leaves are finely chopped and boiled for about five minutes in salted water. Then the vegetables are thrown into a colander and allowed to drain water. Boiled greens are crushed in a blender to a puree state. The cooked puree is boiled until it thickens. The mass is sent to banks, covered with lids and put in the refrigerator.

Pickling

To be able to use greens in their winter diet, it is often salted and canned. Before using salting, it is necessary, as in previous cases, to rinse and dry it, cut the cuttings. Leaves are torn in small pieces, laid out in banks in layers, each of which is sprinkled with salt. The layers should be medium in thickness and densely packed. Salts take about ten percent of the weight of spinach. Salted vegetables should be stored in the refrigerator, making sure that mold does not appear on the surface. You can also salt the spinach with other herbs, such as parsley or dill. Before consuming a salted vegetable, it is washed. Put spinach a few minutes before the dish is ready.

Canning

Spinach harvested by this method can be stored for quite some time.

Ingredients: one kilogram of spinach, one liter of water, two tablespoons of table salt.

Cooking

Before, it is necessary to rinse it, remove the cuttings and dry. Then the vegetable is blanched for five minutes in very hot, but not boiling water. Leaves are thrown into a colander to water glass. Next, the greens are laid out tightly in sterile jars, the excess liquid is drained. Then a brine is prepared from water and salt. Salt is put in boiling water and boiled for about two minutes. This brine is filled with jars of herbs and tightly clog or roll up the lids.

Spinach with onion and parsley

Ingredients: one and a half kilograms of spinach, six hundred grams of water, three hundred grams of onion greens, twenty grams of salt, twenty grams of parsley and dill.

Cooking

All greens are thoroughly washed and all excess is removed. All the greens, except spinach, are finely chopped, spinach is cut in the shape of a noodle. All the greens are put in a pan, salt and add water. Cook for ten minutes. The finished mixture is laid out in jars and sterilized in a half-liter container for twenty-five minutes, then rolled up with lids and cooled.

Drying

You can harvest spinach for the winter by drying it. This is most often done if there is no free space in the refrigerator for freezing or storage. So, the leaves of the vegetable are washed, dried and laid out on clean paper in a warm room so that direct sunlight does not fall on them. You can use an electric dryer for this purpose. In this way, the vegetable is dried for about three hours at a temperature of thirty-five degrees Celsius. Dry leaves are stacked in glass jars, covered and put in a dark place. Dried leafy vegetables are good for preparing first courses.

Now we know. These processes are time-consuming and simple, they do not take much time, and the result is excellent. Harvested vegetables will help to color the winter diet with bright summer colors.

Finally ...

Spinach is one of the most healthy foods in the world. Doctors recommend using it to all people who want to prolong their youth and life. In summer, spinach is fairly easy to purchase, but what to do in winter? To do this, all housewives are advised to stock up on this leafy vegetable using the above methods. It’s good to use tasty and healthy spinach for preparing first and second courses, appetizers and sauces. This vegetable has a huge amount of useful elements and vitamins. Therefore, it is considered one of the effective products that resist the formation of malignant tumors and aging. Spinach regulates the functioning of all systems in the body, including the activity of the brain. Therefore, it is recommended to regularly use it in small quantities.