How to dry the parsley at home- This is an unforgettable aroma of hot meat and vegetable dishes, a spicy additive to salads and marinades. When warm days come to an end, the plants produce less and less green, fragrant leaves, and soon they completely disappear under the snow. How to keep parsley fresh for the winter so that the vitamin-rich diet does not become scanty, and the menu even during the cold season remains as varied and useful as possible? Under the conditions of a refrigerator, parsley can be stored for no more than a month at temperatures up to +6 ° C.At the same time the foliage gradually loses moisture, turns yellow and fades. Rhizomes of parsley are more hardy.
If submerged roots and soil from residues are immersed in clean sand, to ensure a constant flow of air and a temperature of +1 to +5 ° C, then the parsley successfully overwinter. True, not everyone has a cellar, and during the wintering rhizomes lose quite a large part of the nutrients. How to store parsley?
Today, even at home, you can use several methods and recipes for preparing parsley for the winter. Moreover, in all cases, the processing of greens and root crops carried out does not affect either the taste of the products or their vitamin composition.
Can I freeze parsley for the winter?
The dense foliage of parsley and root vegetables, harvested in the fall, perfectly freeze.
The effect of cold does not violate the structure of the tissues of the roots and leaves, the amount of aromatic and beneficial substances does not decrease. Moreover, the way when whole bunches or leaves are subjected to freezing can today be considered the simplest and fastest. How to prepare parsley for the winter using this recipe?
- Pre-harvested greens are sorted, removing dried or damaged leaves, blade of grass and foreign inclusions.
- Prune off unsuitable coarse petioles.
- Parsley is thoroughly washed and dried for about 10–15 minutes on a napkin or towel.
- Greens, ready to freeze, are divided into small portion bunches, sufficient for filling one dish.
- Foliage wrapped in plastic wrap or laid out in packages, then to send in the freezer.
Read also: Making candied fruit from watermelon peels
In the staged photos you can see how to freeze parsley for the winter for the winter. If you do not expose the greens to thawing and re-exposure to cold, the parsley is beautifully stored all winter. It is important that at the moment of laying, the beams were as clean as possible, and there were no traces of water on the surface of the leaves, which at low temperatures could not have the best effect on the quality of greenery.
Judging about the presence of moisture inside the bags can be judged by the way parsley looks. If the greens are not sufficiently dried, the thawed stems will be dark green, completely lost elasticity, drooping. High-quality greens retain the look and structure of fresh.
Similarly, come with parsley rhizomes. They are washed, removing small roots and leaves. Peeled rhizomes are cut into strips or cubes, like greens, dried and packaged in small packets. Such parsley in winter can be used while cooking broths, stews and other hot dishes.
How to freeze parsley for the winter: photos and descriptions of original ways
It is not always possible to spend even a small bunch of parsley. Is it possible to freeze parsley for the winter in even smaller portions? Yes, if you use ice tins, then after it has been frozen, it is washed, washed and finely chopped parsley turns into fragrant cubes for filling bouillons, casseroles, stewed vegetables or pasta.
When using this method of parsley harvesting for the winter, it is important to choose the right degree of chopping leaves.
If you use a blender, the green mass will give juice and become mushy, but at the same time it fills the cells of the ice container and freezes. With manual grinding, the particles are larger, but it is much more difficult to form a cube. Therefore, before taking a picture of freezing parsley for the winter, using this method, you will have to take care to chop the foliage as small as possible. In any case, such an additive to the dishes fully conveys the taste and aroma of fresh herbs.
Read also: Dish for all times - boiled lard
But if you want to keep almost whole leaves in cubes, then after folding coarsely chopped green mass in cells, fill the contents with a small amount of water, or better melted butter or unrefined olive oil. Frozen cubes will be a great addition to roasted meat, ravioli, rice dishes and potatoes.
If you prefer, you can add other favorite herbs to the mix, such as green onions, chopped garlic or sweet peppers, oregano and basil.
Harvesting parsley for the winter in oil
A similar way of harvesting parsley for the winter also involves the use of oil, but already ordinary, refined sunflower oil. Yes, and freezer in this case is not required.
- The greens that they want to preserve are necessarily washed, pruning all the tainted, dried and coarse parts of the leaves.
- After that, the parsley is dried and crushed.
- Greens tightly placed in clean glass jars and pour the oil so that between the foliage there is no air bubbles.
When the butter is covered with parsley, the jars are tightly closed and sent to a cellar or refrigerator, where the product will be stored at a temperature of +1 to +8 ° C.
How to make parsley for the winter: a recipe for salting greens
Pickling is one of the oldest ways to preserve the properties of the most perishable foods at a time when home refrigerators were just a dream.
Today, few people remember how to keep parsley fresh with salt for the winter. Nevertheless, salt as a natural preservative perfectly preserves all the qualities of greens and does not allow harmful microorganisms to develop.
Clean chopped greens and grated root vegetables are suitable for pickling. Five parts by weight of vegetable raw materials take one part of salt. The components are mixed and laid out in clean glass jars so that there is room for the juice that forms as the salt dissolves. Closed containers can be stored in the cellar or in the refrigerator, and, if necessary, use salted parsley for culinary purposes.
Read also: Cooking a quick tasty snack for champagne
How to dry parsley at home
Drying greens and rhizomes is one of the most effective ways to harvest parsley for the winter. All trace elements and vitamins remain in the finished product, the aroma remains almost unchanged, and sometimes it becomes more saturated.
In addition, dried parsley does not require special storage conditions, repeatedly loses weight and volume compared to fresh and is also convenient to use. Before you dry the parsley at home, greens and root vegetables are washed, carefully and carefully dried. After drying, it will not be possible to separate the weed inclusions, rotted and rough parts of the plant, so the raw materials are sorted in advance and the rhizomes are cleaned.
Parsley greens can be dried as a whole leaf with the top of the stem, as well as in separate small pieces. Root vegetables before drying cut into thin circles or small cubes. You can dry parsley, like other garden crops, in the open air, under gauze, in a microwave oven, special drying or in an oven, at a temperature not higher than +60 ° C.If the air is hot, there is a risk of burning the green and losing its beneficial properties. Determine the quality of dry grass by the way parsley looks.
If initially the green grass acquired a yellowish or brown shade, the temperature during the drying was broken.
In order to keep the moisture loss from the leaves and pieces of the root crops more evenly and faster, the raw materials from time to time carefully ted. How to store parsley after drying?
At the end of the process, dry the parsley sprinkled in glass jars with tightly closed lids or bags with an inner layer of foil. Such packaging will not allow the dry product to lose its flavor and absorb moisture from the air.
How to freeze parsley for the winter - video
