How to preserve rhubarb for the winter in the freezer at home: 5 ways to freeze rhubarb

How to Prepare Rhubarb for Freezing

Rhubarb stems are freed from the leaf part and the root part is cut off by 1-2 centimeters. The leaves of this plant are not eaten because of the high content of oxalic acid in the greens.

Rinse the stems under the tap to remove sand and dust. After this procedure, you can blot them with a waffle towel.

To remove the skin you will need a sharp knife. At one edge the peel is hooked with a knife and removed along the entire length of the stem.

You can learn about the benefits of rhubarb from the video from the channel “JitZdorovo” - Rhubarb is an edible burdock

Ways to freeze rhubarb for the winter

Freezing raw rhubarb

Raw rhubarb can be frozen, with or without the skin.The vegetable is frozen with the skin, which will later be used for making compotes, and without the skin - for making soups and filling for baked goods.

To freeze rhubarb raw, simply cut it into arbitrary cubes.

To prevent the pieces from sticking into one lump in the freezer, they can be pre-frozen on a flat surface for 1-2 hours.

Frozen rhubarb is placed in bags or containers and stored in the freezer.

Marina Kopylova will tell you how to freeze unpeeled raw rhubarb in her video - Freezing rhubarb

Freezing rhubarb in sugar

Here, peeled rhubarb is also not subjected to heat treatment. As in the previous recipe, the stems are cut into pieces. Chopped rhubarb is placed in containers in layers, sprinkling each layer with sugar. Thus, approximately 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar are needed per half a kilo of vegetable mass.

How to Blanch Rhubarb Before Freezing

Blanched rhubarb retains its flavor and shape.

Peeled and cut into cubes stems are lowered into a pan of boiling water. The vegetable should be in boiling water for exactly 1 minute. After the allotted time, remove the rhubarb cubes with a slotted spoon and immediately lower them into a container of ice water. To achieve faster cooling, add a dozen ice cubes to the water.

The cooled rhubarb is dried on towels and laid out on cutting boards covered with cellophane. In this form, the vegetable is sent to the freezer for several hours.

The frozen pieces of rhubarb are then packaged in bags or containers for freezing.

How to Freeze Rhubarb in Syrup

The first step is to boil the syrup. To do this, take water and sugar in a ratio of 2:1.The syrup is boiled over a fire until the sugar is completely dissolved. Then it is cooled.

The syrup must be cool before freezing, so after it has cooled down, keep it in the main compartment of the refrigerator for another couple of hours.

The inside of the containers is lined with cling film and the rhubarb is placed in them. Then the vegetable is poured with cool syrup and sent to the freezer.

After a day, take out the containers and take out an ice block of rhubarb in syrup. This briquette is wrapped in several layers of cling film and stored in the freezer.

Freezing in juice

This method differs from the previous one only in that the vegetable pieces are poured not with syrup, but with juice. To do this, you can use any packaged juice: orange, grape, apple or pineapple.

How to store and defrost rhubarb

The shelf life of frozen rhubarb in the freezer is 10 to 12 months.

Rhubarb prepared for making soups is dipped into the dish right during its preparation.

To use as a pie filling, the rhubarb is thawed for several hours at room temperature. It is highly not recommended to use a microwave oven for this.