How to freeze spinach for the winter at home: 6 freezing methods

Preparing the product for freezing

We cut off the roots from the bunches of greenery; it is better to remove the stems later. Place the spinach in a container of water and rinse thoroughly, then rinse under the tap and place in a colander to drain excess liquid.

Place the greens on paper or waffle towels and let dry thoroughly. You can lightly blot them with towels on top, but this must be done very carefully, since spinach has very fragile leaves.

Ways to freeze spinach for the winter

How to Freeze Raw Spinach

Freezing whole leaves

Cut the stems from the leaves.Collect 10-15 leaves in one pile, roll them up and squeeze them tightly with your hand to fix the shape.

Such preparations can be immediately put into a bag or frozen first on a board, and then transferred to a common container.

Freezing chopped greens

Remove the stems from the spinach leaves and cut them into 1-2 centimeter strips.

We pour the slices into a bag, which we then twist into a tight sausage. You can also pack chopped greens in cling film.

Freezing in ice cubes

Spinach is chopped with a blender or cut with herb scissors. Place the slices in ice cube trays or silicone molds. Pour the workpiece with boiled cold water and put it in the freezer. After a day, the cubes are poured into a separate bag or container.

See video from Lubov Kriuk - Simple freezing of greens. Spinach for the winter is an excellent dietary product

How to freeze spinach after cooking

You can process spinach before freezing in different ways:

• Blanch the greens in boiling water for 1 minute using a sieve;
• pour boiling water over the leaves and let sit for about a minute;
• steam the vegetable in a double boiler for 2 minutes.

The main thing is to quickly cool the vegetable in ice water after cooking. To keep the water temperature as low as possible, add ice cubes to the bowl.

See video - Spinach. How to prepare spinach for the winter

Freezing Boiled Spinach Leaves

The heat-treated leaves are thoroughly squeezed and formed into balls or cakes. Place the workpiece on a flat surface and freeze. Frozen spinach is packed into bags, tightly closed and put in the freezer.

Freezing spinach puree

Spinach treated with boiling water or steam is crushed in a blender, with the addition of a few tablespoons of water, until pureed. At the same time, you can also use the stems of the plant.

The finished puree is laid out in silicone molds or in containers for freezing ice cubes. After preliminary freezing, the puree is removed from the molds and placed in containers. This preparation is very convenient to use for making sauces.

Freezing puree with butter

This method differs from the previous one in that the molds are filled halfway with puree, and softened butter is placed on top. In this case, it is better not to melt the butter to a liquid state, but only to defrost it to room temperature.

Spinach with butter must first be put in the refrigerator, and then the frozen cubes can be transferred to a separate container.

Shelf life of frozen spinach

Spinach frozen by any method will keep in the freezer for 10 to 12 months. The only exception is greens frozen with butter. Its shelf life should not exceed 2 months.

In order not to confuse the vegetable with other greens, the preparation must be marked, indicating the date the food was placed in the freezer.