Mushrooms are rich in valuable protein, which is very important for maintaining the normal functioning of all organs and systems in the human body. The forest product is not only healthy, but also tasty, included in many dishes, giving them a special aroma.
To ensure that this wonderful plant product is always available, it must be prepared in advance for future use, so that you can enjoy mushroom-based dishes for a long time. I’ve already told you how I pickle honey mushrooms, how to dry forest products, and how to boil them, now we’ll freeze them.
By freezing, you can preserve food, preserving its taste for a fairly long time. This technology helps preserve the workpieces unchanged for more than 12 months.
Self-procurement of products allows you to save a significant part of financial resources, since in winter these same mushrooms cost a lot of money than during their growth period.
Moreover, my dad and husband not only love to collect them, but also eat them. And since I love to cook, I prepare various tasty treats, and I also freeze them for the winter for soup, stews, baking, and salads.
Today I want to share with you all the intricacies of freezing, I hope they will help you preserve your harvest without loss, and in winter, save time by using semi-finished products to prepare dinner.
Basic rules for freezing mushrooms at home
The first stage is the sorting of future workpieces
Upon returning from the “silent hunt”, it is necessary to start sorting forest gifts.
To do this, you should sort the mushrooms based on the structure of the cap:
- Marsupial varieties (morels, saucers, truffles).
- Lamellar type (chanterelles, milk mushrooms, russula, honey mushrooms, champignons).
- Tubular varieties (ceps, aspen mushrooms, fly mushrooms, boletus mushrooms).
In order for the workpieces to take up as little space as possible, they are sent for heat treatment, so their volume can decrease several times.
The second stage is to prepare for further freezing
After carefully sorting the mushrooms, excess dirt is cleaned with a knife, and the lower part of the stem is cut off. It is necessary to pay attention to the caps; if there is dirt and other particles of debris on them, then all this is removed with a sponge and a knife.
If you plan to freeze raw gifts of nature, then they must be wiped with a damp sponge, no need to soak, lightly blot with a clean, dry towel.
Before frying or boiling, food can be placed in a container with water to allow dust particles to settle, then carefully squeeze out excess moisture and begin heat treatment.
Fruits for winter storage
Mushrooms are a storehouse of vitamins and microelements. Their regular use is considered a good prevention of cancer. They are recommended for those losing weight or fasting.
By following the rules for storing forest harvests, you can provide yourself with your favorite dish with the taste of autumn for the winter. All mushrooms can be frozen, but the most popular are:
- white;
- oyster mushrooms;
- chanterelles;
- boletus;
- honey mushrooms;
- boletus;
- Champignon.
Mushroom product for the winter at home is prepared in several forms:
- raw;
- boiled;
- fried;
- baked.
Each type of mushroom - lamellar, marsupial, tubular - requires its own method of freezing and storing in the refrigerator. For example, dense fruits belonging to the tubular type best tolerate the process of exposure to cold in their raw form. These are porcini mushrooms, boletus mushrooms and butter mushrooms.
What is the best way to freeze mushrooms, raw or boiled?
To stock up on winter supplies, forest products can be frozen both raw and boiled. It is much more convenient to take the already boiled product out of the freezer and add it to the dish. Divide the peeled and chopped mushrooms into several portions and place them in bags.
Raw forest products after storage in this way will still have to be subjected to heat treatment. Also, raw mushrooms will contain much more water than pre-cooked mushrooms.
Brief classification
There are edible, conditionally edible, inedible and poisonous mushrooms - very dangerous ones that should not be eaten, given the risk of poisoning, often leading to death. There are especially many of these among the lamellar varieties. You should be especially careful when collecting them, since poisonous mushrooms often look like completely edible ones.
Tubular (spongy) representatives of the mushroom kingdom (photo by the author) are preferable both in terms of nutritional value and from a safety point of view - they have fewer poisonous counterparts
Experts recommend using special reference books that help identify the “gifts of the forest king,” as well as interactive applications that allow you to identify and identify an unfamiliar find on the spot, without even cutting it off. When in doubt, it is better to check with trusted sources, for example, follow the federal sanitary rules for the procurement, processing and sale of mushrooms.
How to properly boil mushrooms for freezing
The time allocated for boiling can be from five to ten minutes. This way, the volume of the workpiece will be reduced several times; however, the pieces that are not completely cooked will have to be boiled for some time before cooking.
The freezing process usually does not cause any difficulties.
Methods for freezing honey mushrooms
After collecting forest gifts, they should be thoroughly cleaned, and rotten specimens unsuitable for harvesting should be removed. Sorting by size occurs. Smaller ones are placed in bags whole, and larger ones are cut into pieces.
Having gotten rid of small debris and infested insects from future preparations, if necessary, they are wiped with a damp towel, after which the honey mushrooms are laid out on a tray or cutting board wrapped in cling film in one layer.
They are placed in the freezer and after a certain period of time they are removed and poured into bags and moved for long-term storage.
Freezing boiled honey mushrooms
Pre-sorted and washed mushrooms are dipped into boiling liquid and boiled for 10 minutes.
Next, the workpieces are dumped into a colander. This way they get rid of excess fluid. After excess moisture has drained off, the pieces are packaged in separate bags. Each bag should be designed for one serving, so as not to resort to re-freezing.
Freezing fried product
The semi-finished product prepared in this way is completely ready for consumption. To make it, place the mushrooms in heated sunflower oil in a frying pan and fry for 20 minutes.
After heat treatment, the workpieces are poured into a sieve to remove excess oil. The cooled pieces are placed in portions into bags. The air should be released from them. After all the work has been done, the products can be stored in the freezer.
How to freeze fresh porcini mushrooms
Purified raw materials are sorted before being sent for storage. Small mushrooms can be frozen whole, and larger ones can be chopped into pieces.
Whole mushrooms are suitable for holiday dishes, and cubes from the legs and caps are suitable for cooking soup and stewing goulash.
The prepared raw materials are placed in containers or bags and sent for freezing. If the pieces have been washed, to prevent them from sticking together, the slices are laid out on a flat surface and left to freeze for 12 hours.
Next they are moved to storage containers.
Bottom line
Thus, we come to the conclusion that boiling mushrooms before freezing them is not as simple as it seems to home cooks at first glance. But we found out that in order to get tasty and nutritious mushroom products in winter, it is still better to boil them before freezing, and also use the other tips and recommendations given in the article. With experience, you yourself will begin to grasp much better the necessary temperature and time indicators required for cooking mushrooms. And we wish you good luck in the difficult culinary task and the most delicious dishes for your table!
Freezing chanterelles at home
The product can be frozen in two ways
First option. The prepared raw materials are placed in containers and sent for processing. Long-term storage of such preparations can lead to the appearance of bitterness, which spoils all stored raw materials.
The second method is to pour boiling water over the product and leave it to simmer for a while, no more than twenty minutes. The liquid can be slightly salted.
After processing, the workpieces are removed and washed.
And dry with a paper towel. Then all the slices are transferred to a tray and placed in the freezer. After some time, they are taken out and packaged in prepared containers.
These can be either trays with a lid or bags with a zip fastener.
How to freeze wild mushrooms for the winter in the freezer
Forest products are more natural and aromatic than store-bought ones. Therefore, it is worth stocking up on these raw materials in advance so that you can enjoy the extraordinary aroma and rich taste of nature’s forest gifts all year round.
For these purposes, young specimens growing in the depths of the forest are selected. Roadside mushrooms absorb harmful toxic substances and can harm human health.
Freezing raw materials
Tubular species are ideal for this method, such as red caps and porcini mushrooms. Small mushrooms are suitable for processing in their entirety, while larger ones are chopped into plates 1-2 cm thick.
All slices are distributed on a horizontal surface and put into the freezer. Slightly frozen slices are sent to storage containers.
Boiled pieces for freezing
The raw materials are cut into cubes and placed in boiling water for 5-10 minutes, transferred to a colander to drain the liquid, after which they are divided into several bags in portions and frozen.
Baked forest products
To add a rich taste and aroma, the prepared slices are placed on a baking sheet and baked for 20 minutes. The cooled pieces are poured into containers and stored in the freezer.
When defrosting, you don’t need to let them melt completely, cut them up slightly frozen, and you can add them to soup, or fried potatoes with onions, and also bake a pie or pies with filling.
A few words about champignons
Store-bought champignons can be boiled before freezing, but this is not necessary. Although there is no particular point in freezing this species - after all, it is available fresh all year round. It’s much better if you find and collect champignons in the forest - they are much more fragrant than their greenhouse counterparts from the supermarket. The white mushroom with pink-dark plates that you often see in the forest is most likely not a toadstool, but a forest champignon. But still remember the main rule of a mushroom picker: if there is even a shadow of doubt, consider the find poisonous and leave it in the forest.
In general, boiled or fried mushroom is an excellent semi-finished product for any dish: from soup to julienne, from sauce to roast.
Freezing boletus and boletus
Open the products until they are completely cooked, drain off excess liquid, pack in bags or food containers and place in the freezer.
If necessary, you can stock up on semi-finished pieces if they will later be used to cook broth for soup and other dishes.
Another quick way is to cook the forest products for 10 minutes, from which you then need to drain the liquid, then fry them in a hot frying pan with oil, cool and place them in prepared containers.
Boletus and boletus mushrooms can be stored frozen for no more than 6 months.
