Frozen mushrooms: step-by-step cooking recipes with photos

Honey mushrooms differ from their mushroom counterparts in rich taste and aroma. It is not surprising that they are so popular in our country. Mushroom soup, pizza, pies and, of course, young potatoes fried with honey agarics are, on the one hand, simple but extraordinarily delicious dishes. In addition, mushrooms can diversify the lean menu.

So honey mushrooms are dried, salted, pickled and made into caviar. And of course, every housewife wants to keep the mushrooms frozen.

Do mushrooms freeze for the winter

Honey mushrooms, like many other products, are perfectly stored in a frozen state. They have a dense structure, are not too watery and can stay at sub-zero temperatures for about 12 months. In this way, they will retain their natural smell, taste and nutritional elements. And what is especially nice, this method of long-term storage requires much less effort than, say, traditional pickling. In addition, pickled honey mushrooms can not be put into all dishes because of the harsh spices, while frozen ones are perfect for soup, and for julienne, and for pie.

How to cook honey mushrooms for freezing?

Another way is to freeze boiled mushrooms. To do this, pre-washed mushrooms are dipped in boiling water and boiled for 10 minutes.

Then the mushrooms are transferred to a colander to allow excess liquid to drain. After the mushrooms have completely cooled down, they are packed in bags. It is important that a single portion of mushrooms is placed in one bag, since repeated freezing of mushrooms is unacceptable.

See video: How to cook mushrooms for freezing

See video: Gummy fox will tell you how to freeze mushrooms - harvesting honey agarics for the winter

Collection

Before you freeze mushrooms for the winter, you need to collect them. Experienced mushroom pickers can easily cope with this task, but beginners have to put in more effort. After all, it is important not so much to find mushrooms as to make sure that they are edible. The most sensible solution is to choose a partner for yourself who is well acquainted with the topic and is an ardent fan of quiet hunting.

If this is not possible, then you should be twice as careful: the real honey agaric has a yellowish-brown cap, concave in young individuals, but flatter in adult specimens. On the back of the cap there are yellow or brown plates, on top of the mushrooms there is a bloom - spores. When cut, honey mushrooms are white and have a pronounced, pleasant mushroom smell. There must be a ring-shaped skirt on the leg. Scaly caps.

Important: at the slightest doubt, you must refuse to collect!

The beauty of honey agarics is that they grow up as a whole family. And if you find a good place, then you can collect a couple of buckets of mushrooms, literally on the spot.

You need to collect honey mushrooms quickly, but carefully. Cut or twist the mushrooms gently, without jerking. The second way is preferable. It is necessary to avoid getting leaves and twigs into a bucket or basket - the less garbage, the less mushrooms will be crumpled during transportation.

How to prepare mushrooms for freezing

Honey mushrooms grow in families, and in one place you can collect a decent amount of mushrooms. Mushrooms should be cut several pieces at a time, at a short distance from the ground, so as not to touch the earthen ball. It is better to clean the mushrooms from debris immediately, when collecting.

At home, honey mushrooms need, first of all, to sort out and sort. Only fresh, strong mushrooms with no signs of damage are suitable for freezing. Mushrooms are also sorted by size. Small ones are frozen whole, and large ones are cut into several parts.

Further, the mushrooms need to be washed from various debris and small insects.

See video: How you can peel and sort out mushrooms mushrooms:

Watch the video: Gummy fox will tell you how to clean mushrooms quickly and effortlessly

Sorting and cleaning

Before you freeze mushrooms for the winter, you need to carefully sort them out. Despite the fact that in the forest wormy mushrooms are culled immediately, at home it is necessary to check each mushroom again for holes and larvae. Small mushrooms can not be cut, but large ones can be divided into several parts. Particular attention should be paid to the cap: if the stem of the mushroom is clean, this does not mean that the mushroom on top is as good.

During the bulkhead, you can at the same time sort the mushrooms by size: mushrooms of the same caliber look more advantageous in any dish. In addition, smaller specimens can be cooked less.

Honey mushrooms also need to be cleaned of debris: sometimes it is enough just to knock on the hat to shake off everything unnecessary, but more often the mushrooms are still washed in a large amount of warm water and then dried on a towel.

Is it possible to freeze mushrooms without boiling them in advance?

How to freeze fresh mushrooms for the winter? I must say that all the nutrients and vitamins contained in mushrooms in large quantities do not lose their value. Therefore, knowing how to freeze honey mushrooms, each housewife has the opportunity in winter to delight her loved ones and friends with delicious and healthy dishes from them. Minerals, copper, zinc, phosphorus, iron, protein, lecithin will be especially useful for those who suffer from their deficiency.

Honey mushrooms are not in vain very popular among culinary specialists. The exceptional taste of these mushrooms, aroma and crunchy structure cannot leave anyone indifferent. If you have frozen mushrooms for the winter, your family's menu will be enriched with many mushroom dishes. Note that these fruit bodies can be frozen both fresh and boiled, fried and even twisted into caviar. Any dish can be prepared from frozen mushrooms: soups, borscht, sauces, pates, julienne. They can be pickled, salted, fried with potatoes, or pizza toppings. Frozen mushroom preparations from honey agarics will delight your whole family, which will be grateful for your efforts.

So, is it possible to freeze mushrooms without boiling them in advance? Dishes from frozen mushrooms are in no way inferior to counterparts from fresh mushrooms. If you freeze honey mushrooms fresh, you must first prepare them for this process. The main thing is not to leave raw mushrooms for a long time, so that they do not deteriorate. Upon arrival home, the mushrooms should be immediately sorted out, cleaned of grass and leaves, cut off most of the leg and, if necessary, remove plaque from each cap with a dry sponge. Then put the mushrooms in bags in portions and put in the freezer. So that there is less work with mushrooms at home, it is advisable to clean them in the forest and remove the remnants of mycelium. Many mushroom pickers agree that this significantly saves time before freezing.

But is it possible to freeze honey mushrooms raw if you rinse them first? Note that in this matter, everyone acts as they wish. Of course, in order to get rid of the larvae of insects that settle between the plates of mushrooms, honey mushrooms are soaked for 20-25 minutes in cold water in the best way. Then they are laid out on a sieve or in a colander, the liquid is allowed to drain well and laid out on a clean kitchen towel. After the mushrooms are dry, they are laid out on a baking sheet in one layer and placed in the freezer, setting the lowest possible temperature.After 3 hours of freezing, honey mushrooms are packed in plastic containers or plastic bags, and then put back in the freezer, returning to normal temperature.

How to freeze fresh mushrooms for the winter?

When you freeze food, you want to keep it as fresh as possible. And therefore, exclude or minimize heat treatment. And therefore, many are interested in how to properly freeze mushrooms fresh for the winter.

It should be said right away that you can freeze mushrooms without heat treatment. So they will more fully preserve their unique aroma, which they will later give to the dish. Whereas during pre-cooking, some of the taste is lost.

Recipe: sort and sort the mushrooms, rinse them and soak them for half an hour. Then dry on a towel and spread on a baking sheet in one layer. Freeze in a freezer at a temperature of -18-20⁰С. After decomposition into portioned bags or containers.

An important rule: you need to freeze fresh mushrooms immediately, directly on the day of collection.

Freezing methods

Peeled mushrooms can be frozen both raw and boiled, stewed or fried. In addition, the mushrooms can be pre-blanched. The choice of freezing method depends on the recipes for the dishes that you plan to cook later. Choose the option that suits you specifically!

Raw

All actions must be reproduced in the order shown below:

1. Prepare a flat plastic stand or cutting board.
2. Spread the peeled mushrooms evenly over the surface of the pallet. It is necessary to stack in one layer, as the fruits can stick together and deform.
3. Set the freezer to deep freeze.
4. Then the pallet with the fruits must be kept in the freezer for a short time until the mushrooms freeze.
5. Pour the frozen mushrooms into plastic containers or plastic bags and send them to the freezer for long-term storage at a temperature of -18 ºC.

How to boil honey mushrooms for freezing?

Many people do not trust mushrooms that have not been cooked. And although many housewives calmly store mushrooms freshly frozen in the freezer, most still prefer to boil them first.

The most distrustful cooks boil honey mushrooms twice: for the first time they wait until boiling and boil for about twenty minutes, and then change the water, add salt to it and put the mushrooms in boiling water for another 10-15 minutes. Most people boil honey mushrooms once, the cooking time after boiling is 15-20 minutes. Some people think that these mushrooms should be boiled in a small amount of water (1 glass per 5-6 liter saucepan), no more than 10 minutes, with the addition of salt and bay leaf. And this broth is subsequently also frozen and used for making soups and sauces.

Based on the fact that mushrooms are suitable for freezing and fresh, the cooking process is presented as a method of more compact storage of mushrooms: after heat treatment, they give off a lot of water and lose a lot in volume.

What is the best way to cook frozen mushrooms?

It is worth noting that freezing is considered the best way to harvest mushrooms for the winter. However, many novice housewives ask themselves: how best to cook frozen mushrooms? As already noted, a wide variety of dishes are prepared from them, including borscht, soups, julienne, sauces, etc. For example, for frying and stewing, fresh mushrooms can not even be thawed, but proceed immediately to heat treatment. Frozen fresh mushrooms can be boiled and pickled in a quick way. After 2-3 hours they will be ready and can be served to guests.

The frozen mass of fresh mushrooms rolled in a meat grinder is first defrosted, and then they do what they have planned. It can be fried and filled for tartlets or pies. You can make a pate from it if you use a blender. To do this, it is fried in butter with the addition of your favorite spices and herbs.

grib-

Honey mushroom caviar

How to freeze honey agarics for the winter? There are different recipes, but one of the most popular is the preparation of mushroom caviar. In the classic version, mushroom caviar is chopped mushrooms with spices and always with garlic, packed in jars.

But there are other ways as well. For example, to save space in the freezer, you can twist fresh mushrooms and store them in this form for 3-4 months. This product can be obtained at any time, fried and used as an addition to mashed potatoes or as a filling for pies.

There is another option, how to freeze mushrooms for the winter in the form of caviar. To do this, you need to sort out the mushrooms and soak them in cold water for 30-40 minutes. Then boil them in salted water for 15-20 minutes. When cooking, do not forget to thoroughly descale. Then put the mushrooms on a sieve or in a colander, rinse them with cold water, allow time to drain all excess liquid.

After honey mushrooms, twist, salt and mix with a small amount of good olive oil. Such caviar is immediately ready for use and, after defrosting, does not require thorough heat treatment.

Fried honey mushrooms

Fried mushrooms are an unusual way of freezing, but they can be added immediately to the finished dish. It is enough to warm them up a little - and a delicious gravy or roast is ready.

Fried mushrooms in oil: preparation and storage

How to freeze fried mushrooms for the winter? This is much easier to do than it seems: the mushrooms are boiled as for a regular freeze, and then fried in a pan until all the liquid evaporates and a light golden crust forms. Next, the semi-finished product should cool to room temperature, after which the mushrooms are laid out in portioned containers and poured with fat.

The disadvantage of this method of storing mushrooms is that such a product can be stored for no more than 3 months, while ordinary boiled mushrooms can be deep-frozen for up to 1 year.

Defrosting rules

Knowing how to properly defrost mushrooms will preserve the quality of the fruit and the texture of the dish.

It is undesirable to put honey mushrooms in the oven or microwave. Defrosting should proceed slowly at room temperature.

When you decide to defrost the raw mushrooms, transfer them to the refrigerator first. In this case, honey mushrooms will be just like fresh. After complete defrosting, the mushrooms should be dried.

If mushrooms were stored boiled, stewed or fried, they must also be defrosted first and only then used in cooking.

Did you know? It is curious that mushrooms, along with ferns, are considered the most ancient inhabitants of our planet. Mushrooms are older than dinosaurs, they existed 400 million years ago (long before the appearance of dinosaurs). Even the giant ferns that have survived to this day were significantly crushed, while the mushrooms were able to adapt (many species exist to this day).

Freezing and storage

How to freeze honey mushrooms for the winter in the refrigerator after all the preparations?

1. Freeze in the freezer, after setting the thermostat to the lowest temperature. For ordinary household freezers, this figure does not exceed -25⁰С. You should be aware that frequent temperature fluctuations do not benefit the unit and reduce its service life.
2. After complete freezing, semi-finished products can be transferred to a warmer chamber with a temperature of -9⁰С. However, if possible, it is better to leave them in the deep-freeze compartment, this increases the shelf life.
3. Ideally, you need to have a separate freezer for deep-frozen products: this way you can not only maintain the ideal temperature, but also avoid the appearance of an odor from the mushrooms.
4. Store mushrooms and other semi-finished products in a separate compartment of the freezer.
5. You need to know how to freeze mushrooms for the winter for the longest possible storage: remember that fried caviar or mushrooms are stored for no more than 3, maximum 4 months, while boiled ones are suitable for consumption after a year.
6. Never re-freeze food, which is why it is so important to store mushrooms in the freezer immediately in portioned containers.
7. Sign packages. So you can immediately find out in what form these specific mushrooms are stored and how much they already lie.

How do honey mushrooms freeze after boiling?

How do honey mushrooms freeze after the boiling process? First, the mushroom harvest must be cleaned, the lower part of the leg is cut off and washed in cold water. Pour into an enamel pan, fill with water so that it completely covers the mushrooms. Allow to boil, add salt (for 1 kg of honey agarics 1 tbsp. L salt). Cook for 20 minutes over medium heat, constantly removing the foam that forms on the surface with a slotted spoon. Throw in a colander, allowing excess liquid to drain completely. Then spread on a towel and leave for 30 minutes. The dried mushrooms are laid out on a pallet in a thin layer. If the mushrooms are frozen in layers, then when frozen, they are deformed, and freezing will take longer. The freezer must be set at -18 ° C.

After deep freezing, honey mushrooms are laid out in plastic bags. The packaging should be such that the package is enough for preparing one dish. Note that honey mushrooms should not be re-frozen, as this spoils the quality of the product. Boiled frozen mushrooms can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Some believe that boiling honey agaric spoils their appearance, so they use blanching. In this case, the mushrooms are laid out in a colander and dipped in boiling water for a few seconds. Then proceed in the same way as after boiling.

Some experienced chefs make several blanks of frozen mushrooms. It turns out that you can even freeze twisted raw mushrooms. To do this, the cleaned fruit bodies are passed through a meat grinder, distributed in food plastic containers and placed in a freezer. This blank is perfect for sauces, mushroom pizza toppings and pies. In addition, it can be stewed and added to fried potatoes.

Preparation

It is important to know not only how to properly freeze mushrooms for the winter, but also how to properly cook them after defrosting. Here you should be guided by a simple rule: the less mushrooms were cooked before freezing, the more they need to be boiled (fried, stewed) in a dish. For the rest, you can rely on your culinary imagination, since frozen mushrooms can be an ingredient in hundreds of different dishes.

So, now you know how to freeze mushrooms for the winter. The recipes and tips are simple and easy to repeat for anyone.

Happy quiet hunting and bon appetit!

How to use frozen mushrooms correctly

No preliminary defrosting of frozen mushrooms is required. From the freezer, previously boiled or fried mushrooms are sent directly to the soup or to the pan. But you will have to tinker with raw frozen mushrooms: you will need to boil them beforehand, after which they will be ready to create masterpieces of mushroom cooking.

Carefully collected, well-peeled mushrooms, if properly frozen and applied, will give a special taste and aroma to both simple and exquisite dishes at any time of the year.

How to cook frozen mushrooms?

Frozen mushrooms can be boiled, fried, stewed, used for making soups, caviar and other dishes.The main thing is to remember one important rule: immediately after defrosting, it is imperative to subject the mushrooms to any type of heat treatment

... You cannot defrost honey mushrooms and leave them in the refrigerator "for later". This, by the way, applies not only to home-made frozen mushrooms, but also to frozen mushrooms bought in a store.

Store frozen mushrooms can be fried or stewed without defrosting

: Simply place the frozen mushrooms in the pan and cook until the excess liquid has evaporated. Home mushrooms should first be boiled because they were not washed before freezing. Therefore, it is better to boil the mushrooms in salted water for 5-10 minutes and discard in a colander, and only then you can fry or simmer them until tender.

Frozen mushrooms can be pickled in the same way as ordinary mushrooms. Before pickling, they must be boiled.

within 10 minutes after boiling, the broth is drained, and only then boiled directly in the marinade.

If you want to enjoy delicious mushroom dishes in winter, be sure to freeze these mushrooms for future use

: it doesn't take too much effort and allows you to significantly diversify your diet in the cold season.

Basic rules for freezing mushrooms at home

The first stage is sorting future workpieces

Upon returning from the "quiet hunt", it is necessary to start sorting forest gifts.

To do this, it is worth sorting the mushrooms based on the structure of the cap:

• Marsupial varieties (morels, saucers, truffles).
• Lamellar species (chanterelles, milk mushrooms, russula, honey agarics, champignons).
• Tubular varieties (porcini mushrooms, aspen mushrooms, mushrooms, boletus mushrooms).

So that the workpieces take up as little space as possible, they are sent for heat treatment, so their volume can be reduced several times.

The second stage is to prepare for further freezing

After carefully sorting, the mushrooms are cleaned of excess dirt with a knife, the lower part of the leg is cut off. It is necessary to pay attention to the hats, 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, do not need to soak, slightly soak with a clean dry towel.

Before frying or boiling, food can be placed in a container with water so that dust particles settle, then gently squeeze out excess moisture and start cooking.

Why is honey mushroom good to freeze?

There are many ways to harvest mushrooms, the most common of which are pickling and freezing. But if pickled foods can not be put into all dishes, then frozen ones perfectly complement soups, roasts, main courses, pizza, etc.

Of all types of mushrooms, honey agarics are an excellent option for storage in the freezer. They are firm enough to hold their shape and do not absorb much moisture. For freezing, select whole, undamaged, medium-sized specimens. If mushrooms were purchased in a store, they do not need to be washed before freezing.

If you pick mushrooms in the forest, follow these rules:

• since mushrooms grow in families, first rake the foliage, and then cut several mushrooms at once;
• so that honey mushrooms do not have to be washed from the ground, clean them immediately during collection with a knife and place them with their hats down;
• try to pick small to medium-sized mushrooms: they are younger and better freezeable.

The shelf life of honey agaric is no more than six months (or a year with a deep freeze mode - 18 degrees). After this time, they must be used, otherwise the mushrooms will lose their taste and freshness.