How to freeze peppers - 4 ways to freeze bell peppers

How to prepare peppers for freezing

The process of preparing peppers for freezing includes several stages:

1. Wash the vegetables thoroughly under running water.
2. Using a sharp knife, cut out the core and remove all the seeds and veins inside the pods. If you leave the light parts of the pepper, then the dish prepared from such a vegetable will be bitter.
3. Once again we wash the pods to remove any remaining seeds and cut fibers.
4. Dry the peppers with a paper towel or cotton cloth. Dry vegetables will retain their shape better when frozen, and the freezing itself will be crumbly.

In the video, Elena Deberdeeva will tell you about two ways to quickly peel peppers.

Four ways to freeze sweet peppers

Method one - freezing whole bell peppers

This method of freezing peppers is probably the easiest. Prepared whole peppers just need to be stacked on top of each other, forming a “pyramid”. To prevent the peppers from sticking together, each pod must be wrapped in a small piece of cellophane. To do this, you can cut the packaging bag into several pieces, approximately 10 centimeters in size on each side. The pepper pyramid is placed in a freezing bag, all the air is removed from it as much as possible, and placed in the freezer for storage. Peppers, frozen whole, are later used for stuffing.

Method two - freezing peppers into cubes or strips

This freezing method will also not cause you any difficulty. The peeled, washed and dried pepper is first cut in half lengthwise, then each half is cut lengthwise again. Now you need to cut the resulting pepper slices crosswise into thin strips or cubes. The size and shape of the cut depends on what you plan to make from this pepper in the future. For pizza and soups, for example, it is more convenient to use peppers cut into strips, but for vegetable stews - into cubes. The crushed peppers are placed in a freezer bag and placed in the freezer. After a couple of hours, you can shake the bags so that the slightly frozen vegetables come unglued, and the frozen vegetables are ultimately crumbly.

Method three - freezing baked sweet peppers

With this method, the peppers are first baked in the oven. To do this, the pods are washed without removing the stalk with seeds. The peppers are placed on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil and placed in the oven for approximately 40 minutes. As soon as the vegetables are browned, take them out, put them in a saucepan and cover tightly with a lid for 15 minutes.After this, holding the pods by the stalk, remove the skin, and then remove all the insides. These peppers are surprisingly aromatic and tasty, so when peeling the peppers, you must try to preserve the juice that will be released from them. Next, the peeled peppers are cut into small pieces, placed in containers, and poured with the resulting juice. The workpiece is stored in a freezer. These frozen peppers are ideal for salads.

Method four - freezing stuffed peppers

This method is used to freeze peppers already stuffed with minced meat. At the same time, peppers can be stuffed either “raw” or previously blanched in boiling water (about 1 minute). Blanching makes the vegetable softer, which allows it to be filled more densely with minced meat. Ready stuffed peppers are frozen in the freezer on a flat surface for 24 hours. Then they are transferred to freezer bags and stored in the freezer for long-term storage.

Temperature for freezing peppers and shelf life

The optimal temperature for freezing is from -19°C to -32°C. The shock effect of temperature allows you to best preserve all the beneficial properties of products.

Maintaining this temperature regime will allow the peppers to survive all winter, until the next harvest.

See the video recipe for freezing bell peppers from the channel - “How to Cook”.

See video: “How to freeze peppers for the winter. Two ways."