Dill is an aromatic spicy herb commonly used in cooking. In the warm season, each housewife adds it to the dishes to add flavor. In the summer it is very easy to buy or grow fresh greens in the garden.
Fresh dill, in contrast to what is sold in stores in the winter, is rich in vitamins and nutrients.
What if in the winter you want a pleasant smell of fresh herbs in the finished dish, is it possible to freeze the herbs in the freezer and store them and how to do it correctly? We will tell about it in our article.
Are useful properties lost when frozen at home?
Under the influence of heat and sunlight, dill begins to rapidly lose vitamin C, for this it is enough even a few hours. Therefore, it should be stored in the cold. Fresh fennel will not lose its beneficial properties when frozen, unlike dried greens.
Freezing should be carried out in stages and in no case should not miss at least one of the items. Otherwise improperly frozen dill spoil and it can not be eaten.
Training
Only fresh greens, which have not yet had flower stalks, are suitable for freezing. This grows in the gardens at the beginning of the summer (June, July).
What should be done to prevent dill from spoiling during freezing, do you need to wash it? You must complete several preparation points.
- Inspect dill the presence of yellowness, faded stems, signs of mechanical damage and the effects of insects. If there are any, we cut off all damaged areas. It should be juicy, fresh. Dill, which did not have umbrellas, is most suitable for freezing.
- Wash thoroughly under running water, greens, especially stalks. Thus prevent mud from entering the dish.
- Very carefully dried greens, you can hang over the sink, then blot with a dry cloth from the remaining slight moisture. You can put the dill in a jar and leave for some time. In this case, all moisture will roll to the bottom of the tank.
How much is stored?
If all the conditions for preparing the dill for freezing are fulfilled, the greens can be stored in the freezer for 1-2 years. In no case should not be allowed to re-freeze, it will negatively affect the taste characteristics of dill and its appearance.
It is better to freeze the product in portions at a time. If you still need to defrost, put the containers with frozen dill in a cool place and wrap a towel. Avoid the entry of air into containers with greens (bags, containers), otherwise the process of decomposition of ingredients may begin.
Freezing methods
There are many different techniques for freezing dill. Every hostess like this or that option. Consider some of the most popular examples below.
In a package or containers
This option of storing dill is used by many housewives. It does not deliver a lot of worries and allows you to quickly freeze a large amount of dill. To do this, you only need to purchase containers or bags for freezing and remove the greens in them.
However, the container with dill takes up quite a lot of space in the freezer, unlike packages. You will often have to take out the container in order to take a pinch of dill, and remove everything that remains to the freezer. Because of this, the product may deteriorate faster and lose its beneficial properties.
- In packages It is more convenient to freeze, because you can use the whole package at once and not subject the product to secondary freezing. Prepared greens lay out in special packages for freezing. If there are no such bags, you can use ordinary plastic bags of dense structure.
You can put both chopped dill and whole twigs in the package, cutting off a thick stalk. Remove excess air from the package, rolling it several times with a rolling pin, seal the package and put it in the freezer.
- For freezing in containers, put prepared greens into carefully washed container. We do not tamp, we try to maintain a loose structure. Tightly close the container and immediately send it to the freezer.
Dill during such freezing will be stored for a long time, you can add to all dishes at the end of cooking: soups, salads, hot, etc.
In briquette
This method of storage is one of the varieties of the previous one. It is most convenient, because dill is not placed in large containers or bags, but in special forms and bags for disposable freezing. They will not take a lot of space in the refrigerator and it will be more convenient to use all the contents at once.
One of the drawbacks is that when cutting briquette crumble strongly, which can cause some inconvenience in the kitchen.
Chopped dill is placed in a bag with a zipper and cleaned in the freezer for pre-freezing. After a while, they take it out, release all the air, pressing the bag with the hand, close the zipper and send it back to the freezer for long-term storage.
Blanched greens
With this method greens before boiling freeze over boiling water - blanch. In this case, there is no doubt that any pollution remained in the green. But it is worth noting that with this method, less vitamins remain than when fresh greens are frozen.
The prepared grass is blanched, cut and sent to the food film. Wrap a kind of "sausage" about 10-12 cm long. Use to add to dishes by cutting off a small piece of sausage. It is worth noting that such dill is not suitable for adding, because it contains a lot of unnecessary liquid.
In ice cubes
In this method of freezing it is not necessary to dry the greens carefully. It suffices to remove wilted parts and mechanical damage. This method will preserve the flavor of dill, but you can add dill, frozen in an ice cube, only in soups and liquid dishes.
- For freezing, peeled fresh bunches finely chopped, put in a mold for freezing.
- We fill with the cooled boiled water, we mix, having carefully distributed in capacity.
- The resulting mass is sent to the freezer.
- When the cubes harden, you can shift them into a bag and tightly tie.
You can use the cubes at the end of cooking, adding to the dish to give the flavor of fresh greens.
In oil or in broth
This method is similar to the previous one, only dill, placed in molds, pour not with water, but with various oils or broth. A significant disadvantage is that such cubes with dill should be used first, since the shelf life is very small.
Prepared washed greens are crushed, distributed in ice molds or in some other small containers, such as yoghurt cups. Then mixed with melted butter or chilled broth and sent to the freezer.
In foil
Prepared dill can be frozen, wrapped in a sausage in ordinary foil. Often, the foil is much more convenient than plastic bags and certainly much stronger. However, if you prepare a lot of different greens, you can get confused among the variety of rolled "sausages" from foil in the freezer. Experienced hostesses in such cases of freezing sign each billet.
To freeze the dill, thoroughly washed and dried greens are ground, put the product on a piece of foil, turn "sausage", removing excess air. The dimensions of the convolution can be adjusted independently, depending on the free space in the refrigerator..
Put the resulting bag in the freezer. If the "sausage" was wrapped tightly, the dill will not become watery and it can be added to all ready-made dishes.
Dill, according to many, is one of the most useful and fragrant herbs. It is often added to various salads, soups and main dishes. Every housewife wants their treats to be fragrant. All methods of freezing listed in this article will help in this, even in winter, when fresh greens on store shelves are in short supply.
