How to freeze sorrel for the winter: useful tips

Summer is the harvesting season, many home-made housewives try to cook as many marinades, preserves and stewed fruit as possible for the winter. If our mothers kept vegetables and fruits only with the help of canning, then we have a great opportunity to keep the product in its original form, simply by freezing it. One such useful and useful product is sorrel. When frozen, it does not lose its beneficial properties, oxalic acid becomes more saturated and less aggressive for the stomach. Frozen sorrel is a quick way to cook borscht or soup, make a filling for the pie. To always have this healthy greens at your fingertips, you need to be able to properly freeze it.

The benefits of sorrel

The sorrel contains a huge amount of vitamin C, which is very important during the period of flu and colds. Sorrel improves the absorption of iron, which helps to raise hemoglobin in the blood. Sorrel improves the digestive tract, in small doses it can act as a remedy for diarrhea, and in large doses it can act as a laxative. Sorrel is recommended for eating with gastritis with a low secretion of gastric juice. In ancient times, sorrel was used to treat heart disease. A decoction of this green helps to get rid of rheumatism and back pain. With some poisoning, sorrel can become an antidote. This herb has analgesic, anti-inflammatory and hemostatic properties. Sorrel is very useful for mature women during menopause - it normalizes hormones, eliminates excessive sweating, and eliminates headaches. Sorrel is a real salvation in the spring, when the body suffers from a lack of vitamins.

How to freeze sorrel

For freezing for the winter you need to take only fresh and whole leaves. Ideally, the freshly picked greens from the beds are frozen.

1. All leaflets need to be sorted out - we remove all yellow, rotten and wormy leaves, leaving only healthy, green and whole.
2. Pour the sorrel with cold water and leave for 5 minutes. Then rinse each leaf and put the greens in a colander to excess glass water. Then put the sorrel on a clean kitchen towel or paper towel.
3. It is very important to dry the sorrel, otherwise excess water can interfere with long-term storage of the product. After half an hour, you need to sort out the sorrel and cut all the stems under the root - we will freeze only the leaves.
4. Cut the sorrel across the leaves as you used to do for cooking. Remember that after defrosting you will not be able to chop greens. It’s better to cut the sorrel right away with the right pieces.
5. Now the sorrel needs to be frozen. You can put greens in sealed plastic containers, vacuum or ordinary plastic bags. To save a place in the freezer, the sorrel needs to be wrinkled a little by hand. So it will take up much less space.
6. It is most convenient to freeze sorrel in small packets, in batches. That is, you do not have to pick out a certain amount of sorrel with a knife from a large container. Just take out one bag and use it to prepare one serving of food. In addition, you do not have to get out all the sorrel every time, which can lose its useful properties with frequent temperature changes.
7. To make sorrel useful, you don’t need to throw an ice piece of frozen greens that you took out of the freezer into the dish. It is much more correct to unfreeze greens on the shelf of the refrigerator and only then add it to dishes. So the sorrel will not lose the lion's dose of vitamin C.

This is the easiest way to freeze sorrel, which will help preserve the taste and benefits of the product.

How to freeze sorrel for borsch

Borsch is the most popular dish made from sorrel. Therefore, some housewives freeze the sorrel in the finished form, so that it is convenient to add to the soup. For freezing, you can use not only sorrel, but also nettle, parsley, and other herbs that you usually add to borsch. Remember, greens (first of all, nettles) must be collected away from highways and roads, so that the product is safe and useful.

Nettle need to be washed and remove the leaves from the stem. Sorrel and other greens are also thoroughly washed and moved. After that, finely chop the workpieces and fill everything with boiling water. After 5-10 minutes, the water can be drained and the greens decomposed in small molds. It can be silicone molds for muffins, a container for freezing ice, even simple cups or portioned containers. When the workpieces are frozen in the refrigerator, it is very simple to remove them from the dishes and put them in a bag. If necessary, when you will once again cook the borsch, just take out a “piece” of greens and add to the pan 10 minutes before cooking. A fragrant dish with a summer smell is already on your table! Putting the rest of the greens in the refrigerator, tightly tie a bag so that the sorrel does not absorb extraneous odors.

What to cook from frozen sorrel

Many housewives use sorrel only for cooking green borsch. But actually this product is used in many recipes.

1. Everyone knows the rich sorrel soup with egg. This spicy dish with a slight acidity has a delicate taste and rich aroma.
2. If you fry thawed sorrel in a pan and mix it with chopped boiled egg, you get an amazing filling for fried pies.
3. Mix sorrel with boiled rice - the filling for the lean pie is ready.
4. If you add greens and cheese to the sorrel, you get a spicy French salad.
5. Sorrel is added to various drinks, such as lemonade or smoothies. He gives the cocktails a special sourness.

In general, there are a lot of recipes with sorrel. And if this greenery grows in your garden, do not neglect it, add sorrel to various dishes.

Sorrel goes well with meat and fish dishes. In ancient times, women believed that if they eat a lot of sorrel, they will conceive a boy. It is best to eat and freeze young sorrel - it is more tender and has more useful components. Eat and harvest sorrel for the winter - take care of your health!

Video: conservation of sorrel for the winter