Practical recommendations on how to store bell peppers in the freezer for the winter

During the ripening season of bell peppers, care must be taken to preserve the harvest.

Freezing allows you to preserve vegetables for a long time. It makes it possible to avoid heat treatment and ensures high preservation of nutrients in the fruit.

We’ll talk about how to store bell peppers in the freezer for the winter in this article.

The effect of freezing on the taste and properties of the product

Freezing vegetables at home has many advantages.. These include: preserving the beneficial qualities of bell peppers and saving money, since vegetables are cheaper in season than in winter.

Bell peppers are frozen for future use for various purposes. This is what determines how to prepare the vegetable before placing it in the freezer.

The form of freezing can be very different:

• whole fruits;
• cutting into strips or cubes;
• pre-ground or passed through a blender.

Cut into large pieces, or even better, frozen whole, the vegetable retains the vast majority of its positive properties and taste.The downside of this option is that it takes up a lot of freezer space.

Process Features

There are many options for freezing vegetables. Each method has its own nuances.

Freeze whole for the winter, without cooking

Even freezing whole fruits requires certain preparatory steps. Peppers must be cleaned of seeds. ponytails are cut off, excess moisture inside and outside is removed.

For packaging, peppercorns are stacked several pieces (usually 4-5) inside each other so that they occupy as little volume as possible. You should not use force so as not to damage the fruit. It is advisable to put as many fruits in one plastic bag as will be used to prepare the dish.

The method for freezing peppers can be seen in the video below:

Blanched pods

The use of blanching has a significant advantage - it allows you to use the freezer more economically. This method is suitable for those who have a small freezer.

Pepper is prepared in the same way as in the previous case. Next you need to do the following:

1. The fruits are placed in a large saucepan.
2. The container is filled with boiling water.
3. Place the pan on the fire and bring to a boil.
4. Turn off the fire.
5. Cover with a lid.
6. Leave it like this until it cools completely.
7. Drain the water.
8. Dry it.

After this treatment, the fruits become soft. Vegetables that have become more compact are placed in a bag and placed in the freezer.

This video will tell you about freezing boiled peppers:

Sliced

Depending on the purpose of use and personal preferences, the vegetable can be cut in various ways:

• rings;
• stripes;
• cubes, etc.

Baked

To prepare, you will need dense, ripe peppers with fleshy walls. Work order:

• cover a baking sheet with parchment;
• place the washed fruits on a baking sheet;
• put in the oven for half an hour at 200°C;
• get the pepper;
• transfer to a saucepan;
• to cover with a lid;
• leave in this form for 20 minutes;
• peel the fruit from the top film;
• remove the tail and seeds;
• cut each vegetable into several pieces;
• divide into portioned bags;
• put in the freezer.

Ice balls (cubes)

This method of preserving fresh bell peppers is suitable for further use in sauces, dressings and other dishes that require very fine grinding.

Procedure:

1. Wash and remove seeds from the vegetable.
2. Dry the fruits to remove excess moisture.
3. Pass the vegetables through a meat grinder or use a blender.
4. Place the resulting puree mixture into ice cube trays.
5. Place the molds in the freezer.

Proper defrosting

The prepared preparations placed in the freezer must be properly defrosted. Complete defrosting of vegetables is not always necessary, since the vegetable quickly becomes soft.

Whole frozen vegetables can be stuffed without waiting for them to defrost., since it will lose its shape and it will be more difficult to fill it with filling. As soon as the peppers taken out of the freezer begin to easily separate from each other, they can already be used for the filling.

For peppers that have been frozen as a semi-finished product, incomplete thawing is often also more suitable. You can immediately throw an ice ball with ground pepper into the first dish you are preparing.

5 useful tips

When dealing with freezing bell peppers, The following features should be taken into account:

1. Only ripe vegetables without damage should be frozen.
2. Before placing in the freezer, the fruits should be washed and cleared of seeds, cut off the tails and remove the membranes.
3. After the pepper has been washed, it should be dried. Otherwise, ice will form during freezing.
4. It is convenient to pack peppers in portions. This will prevent you from defrosting more vegetables than are required for one preparation. If you ignore this rule, vegetables that are removed from the freezer will begin to quickly thaw, which is not desirable.
5. Thawed fruits should not be allowed to re-freeze - most of the nutrients will be lost, and the appearance and consistency of the pepper will suffer.

Conclusion

Freezing bell peppers allows you to have a convenient semi-finished product always on hand throughout the winter. In order to delight your family with a variety of flavorful dishes, you can use several freezing methods - from placing whole peppers in the freezer to freezing ice cubes.