How to keep eggplants fresh for the winter?

Vegetable growing » Eggplant

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Kira Stoletova

After harvesting or purchasing in large quantities, the question arises: how to store eggplants? During storage, it is important not only to avoid spoilage of the product, but also to preserve the maximum of beneficial vitamins. Even in special conditions, eggplants are not stored for long. At best, they will last for several months, but may begin to deteriorate in 2-3 weeks.

Storing fresh eggplants

Methods for storing eggplant

The types of eggplant storage are as follows:

Frozen (refrigerator or freezer);
dried;
dried;
in the form of conservation;
fresh (cellar, cool and dark place);
in salted form.

Before you start processing eggplants for further storage, you should select the fruits correctly. This is especially important if you store them fresh, in a cellar or refrigerator.

Preparation for storage

Every fall, many gardeners ask themselves the question: how to keep eggplants as fresh as possible for the winter, and enjoy dishes from this healthy and tasty vegetable crop for longer. It should be noted that the harvest is best stored in a cellar or a specially equipped basement. However, there are also little tricks that allow you to preserve eggplants for as long as possible, even in an apartment or in the residential part of a private house.

First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to such important work that allows you to increase shelf life, such as collecting garden produce and preparing for storage:

As a rule, eggplants begin to be collected when they are not yet fully ripe, at the stage of technical ripeness, and selective collection is carried out approximately a month after the active flowering stage;
young fruits do not have a good taste, which is due to the high content of tannins, but overripe fruits have inedible pulp;
fruits ready for harvesting have soft and tender pulp, small seeds, and they must be cut with sharp pruning shears along with the stalk, the length of which should be a couple of centimeters;
The harvest should be completed before the onset of severe autumn frosts.

Description and nutritional value of butternut squash variety

How to choose suitable fruits?

Photo 1. To eat eggplants in winter in any form, you should select them correctly for storage.
Fruits must be free from defects and damage and free from diseases . Let's consider the main points when choosing fruits for further storage.

Be sure to choose the blue variety - it should be a late vegetable that is picked before frost. If the fruits are early or mid-ripening, they will not be able to survive even until December.
There is no need to carelessly tear it off, do it with a knife, cutting it off, leaving a couple of centimeters at the footrest.
Choose ones that are whole, evenly colored, resilient, shiny and smooth.
If a dent forms when pressing on the eggplant, it means that it is overripe and is not suitable for storage in its fresh form. Such vegetables can be pickled, dried or sealed in jars.
Choose heavy fruits; light fruits have a void in the middle.
Do not wash them, if you want to keep them fresh, wipe them with a dry towel or cloth.

How to properly store fresh eggplants?

If vegetables need to be kept fresh for as long as possible, then it is better to take late varieties. There is no need to wash them after harvesting; it is better to simply wipe them with a dry cloth. Next, you can use one of the following approaches:

We wrap each fruit separately in plastic or several layers of cling film and place it in a dry container. It needs to be placed in a cool, dry place. The refrigerator is not suitable; vegetables will not last two weeks in it.
If there are only a few eggplants, each fruit should be wrapped in paper (not waxed, without font) and placed in a single layer in a dry box. We put them on a cool balcony or put them in the basement.
Eggplants are well preserved under a layer of wood ash. But only the boxes should be deep, and the temperature should not exceed +7ºС.
Owners of a summer cottage can store eggplants directly in the beds after harvesting. Before the onset of cold weather, the fruits are collected in piles and sprinkled with straw for insulation.
If you have a basement and it does not have high humidity, you can spread straw on the floor, lay the eggplants on it and leave it for a couple of weeks. Then we sort through the fruits, leaving the best ones. We wrap them in paper, place them on a thick layer of straw, cover them with a couple of layers of burlap and another layer of straw.

When choosing the latter direction, you need to take into account that it does not guarantee any specific deadlines. Eggplants can last for a couple of weeks or several months. Sometimes they survive until the next harvest without losing their elasticity and juiciness.

Fresh storage in the cellar for the winter

Before putting vegetables into the basement, you need to prepare it.

In the fall, ventilate the cellar (in no case in summer or spring, because condensation may remain and there will be excessive humidity);
disinfect the room (whiten the walls with lime and chalk, it is advisable to add copper sulfate, it will prevent the formation of fungus);
dry the cellar.

Tip #1. Burn the sulfur bomb in the cellar. Sulfur kills all pests and prevents the appearance of fungus. After this procedure, the room is ventilated for several days.

To enjoy fresh and healthy blueberries in the winter, you need to properly and carefully preserve them until consumption. After the blue ones are selected, they need to be wrapped individually in newspapers. Place in one layer in ventilated boxes or boxes, and sprinkle with sand or sawdust. You can put them on straw if you don’t have boxes and carefully insulate them so that they don’t freeze in cold weather.

If you don’t have a cellar because you live in an apartment, then place the vegetables on the balcony. Avoid exposure to sun, precipitation and frost.

How to store eggplants at home

When keeping unprocessed eggplants, the main goal is to preserve their beneficial properties, freshness, juiciness and texture.

Cellar or basement

These places are most suitable for long-term storage of vegetables . Temperature, humidity, shading in the basement conditions are close to optimal. The main thing is that the indicators remain stable, without sudden changes.

The most popular storage methods in the cellar:

laying in layers on the ground/floor/shelves (previously covered with straw);
storage in boxes with holes;
storage in hanging nets.

In the vegetable storehouse, air ventilation and insulation of fruits are provided . To do this, eggplants are wrapped in paper and laid in layers sprinkled with sawdust, ash or river sand.

Important! Do not forget to sort through vegetables from time to time, choosing spoiled ones, and monitor the microclimate in the room.

Balcony

On an insulated (glazed) balcony, fresh eggplants are kept in boxes . The bottom is covered with a thick bedding of straw, the vegetables laid in layers are covered with dry sand or ash. The boxes are covered with burlap on top to protect them from light and cold. When the air temperature drops below +2°C, vegetables are insulated by throwing on, for example, an old blanket or rug.

Fresh eggplants are stored on the balcony for about a month, depending on the weather.

Storage in the refrigerator and freezer

Vegetables can be stored frozen in the freezer, or simply in the refrigerator. The second option involves short-term storage, for 1-2 months. After this time, the vegetables become limp. They must be stored in such a way that air can reach them. Do not put them in closed plastic bags - this will lead to rapid spoilage of the vegetable.

If you put eggplants in the freezer without following certain rules, then after two weeks they will be like rubber. So, in order to be able to enjoy the fresh blue ones you need:

Store them at a temperature of at least – 12 degrees.
Do not store near onions, dill, parsley or other vegetables.
Place in airtight containers or bags.
Before freezing, vegetables are thoroughly washed, tails and spoiled areas are cut off.

You can freeze them fresh or after three types of processing: soaking, blanching and frying. They are soaked in salt water, before this they are first cut into arbitrary pieces. After this procedure, bitterness comes out of them. Then the vegetables need to be squeezed out, placed on a flat surface and covered with a towel so that all excess liquid is absorbed and the pieces dry. After this, put it in a bowl and freeze it.

Photo 2. Store frozen eggplants in plastic bags or airtight containers

Blue ones are also blanched very often. This should be done after soaking in salt water. Place the pieces in a colander and lower them into boiling water for a few minutes. We take them out and immediately put them in cold water. After these manipulations, squeeze it out and put it on a cloth to dry and freeze it.

Tip #2. In order for vegetables to freeze faster, they should be laid out in a thin layer and cut into small circles or cubes.

Before frying, wash the blue ones well, cut off the tails and spoiled areas. You can fry them whole or cut into pieces. After this, they are wrapped in bags or placed in an airtight container.

How to keep eggplants fresh for the winter

Earned: 4
Just a few years ago, storing eggplants was reduced to preparing a specific grainy caviar and a spicy dish with garlic, similar to pickled mushrooms. Today, the range of preparations has expanded noticeably, and with the growing popularity of the vegetable, new knowledge has appeared, thanks to which it is now possible to preserve unprocessed products for as long as possible, even in an apartment. Let's figure out how to keep eggplants fresh for the winter.

Preparing eggplants for long-term storage

The main secret to keeping eggplants fresh for as long as possible is to carefully select the fruits. For long-term storage, fairly young fruits of a rich dark purple color with smooth, elastic and shiny skin, without damage or mold on the petioles or green sepals, are suitable. Choose the heaviest eggplants among those of the same size. See if there are any dents left on the fruit after pressing with your finger? A remaining dent means that the eggplant is overripe.

If you grow your own eggplants, plant late-ripening varieties for long-term storage. Harvest just before frost, cutting off the fruits with a knife along with the stalk. You should not wash eggplants collected from the garden before storing them for winter - just gently wipe them with a dry cloth.

All of the listed options for storing fresh eggplants do not guarantee that the fruits will not deteriorate and will retain their elasticity until the next season. Still, eggplants are least suitable among other vegetables for long-term storage. Well, if you don’t want to do canning, try drying the eggplants for the winter or baking them a little in the oven and freezing them (fresh eggplants become tasteless after freezing). In this form, the fruits can be used for cooking at any time of the year - the taste will be as if the eggplants were just picked from the garden.

Storing eggplants fresh in the cellar

To preserve the harvest for a long time in the cellar, basement or pantries, you should place the eggplants in cardboard boxes, and they should not be folded en masse, but carefully packed individually and separated from each other by a thick paper partition. There should be from one to two or three layers in such a box. You shouldn’t put a lot on top of each other, because the lack of air circulation will lead to spoilage or spoilage of the vegetables. Instead of paper, you can use straw or hay, but in this case, the eggplants are laid out in one layer on a straw bed and covered with burlap for about two weeks to insulate the vegetables from excessive weathering and exposure to humid air.

After the two-week period, the eggplants are sorted. Only whole vegetables undamaged by external factors are left for further storage. After sorting, the eggplants are again placed on a dry bed of straw and remain in storage all winter. Also, another well-known way to store eggplants in the basement is to pour them with wood ash into deep wooden boxes and then keep them at a temperature of +7 °C. An original way to store eggplants in basements or dark places is by hanging them. To do this at home, use a regular mesh. It is stretched at some distance from the floor, and then the eggplants are laid out in one layer. To avoid souring and rotting of vegetables, the room must be ventilated with a mandatory temperature of +3 °C.

Storing eggplants fresh in the apartment

If there is a glazed balcony, where the air temperature does not drop below +3° even on frosty days, eggplants can be stored there. To do this, use boxes or boxes with holes for free air circulation. As in the cellar, eggplants can be stored in bulk, carefully placed in rows on straw with the tails facing down. The top of the fruit is covered to protect it from daylight and cold air.

In the absence of a balcony, eggplants are stored in an unheated pantry, where it is dark, cool, and fairly humid. To do this, they are wrapped in paper, then placed several pieces in a plastic bag with holes. Eggplants can last two to three weeks in this form.

When asked whether it is possible to store eggplants in the refrigerator, the answer is that storing them in this way does not guarantee long-term preservation of the fruit. In the refrigerator, the little blue ones will soon, after about a month, lose moisture and become lethargic. But if you don’t have a cool room, you can still use it. Wrap the eggplants in paper towels and place them in a bag, which is kept open to avoid a lot of condensation.

If you put eggplants in a bag without a wrapper, you will have to change the packaging every day and wipe the eggplants from moisture. But this does not guarantee the safety of the vegetable.

Technology for freezing eggplant at home

Among modern housewives, freezing eggplants is especially popular. The approach allows you to significantly save time on creating preparations, does not require allocating a large amount of space for containers with the product, and reduces the risk of food poisoning to a minimum. At the same time, almost the complete set of useful components is preserved in the pulp of the product. The taste and texture of the product do change, but not for the worse. Before freezing eggplants for the winter, they need to be properly selected and prepared. Only young eggplants with an elastic surface that have not reached a ripe state are suitable for such processing. If you freeze overripe vegetables, they will become impossible to eat later due to their strong bitterness. There is one more point - you can prepare vegetables by freezing only after preliminary heat treatment. Fresh pulp after such events will become like rubber, which will significantly affect the quality of the dish.

We wash, clean and remove all inedible elements. It is also better to cut off the hard skin. We cut the product at our discretion, sprinkle with salt, mix and leave for half an hour. The pulp will give juice and even the slightest bitterness will come out along with them. Next, squeeze the pieces well; you don’t have to rinse them. Place in boiling water and blanch for 5 minutes. Then we put it in a colander and wait until all the water has drained. Place the prepared slices on a plate in one layer and put them in the freezer for a couple of hours for initial freezing. We put the frozen pieces into bags; it is best to pack them one serving at a time. We put the product in the appropriate compartment in the refrigerator and use it as needed.

How to defrost eggplants

Place a portion of frozen eggplants in the refrigerator for several hours to gradually melt. Bring to room temperature until completely defrosted. I do not recommend using a microwave oven. However, most often eggplants are used in dishes without defrosting. They cannot be re-frozen.

Storing dried eggplant

The vegetables are pre-washed, the stalks are removed and cut into pieces of equal thickness. The latter is important for uniform drying. The eggplants are laid out on a spacious surface (if dried in the oven, then on a baking sheet) in one layer. There should be some free space between the pieces. The oven is heated to a temperature of 200 oC and the chopped vegetables are left there for about an hour. After this, the temperature is reduced by half, and the fruits are dried for another 4 hours. When drying naturally, the tray with the chopped pieces is placed in a windless place, protected from direct sunlight. The process will end no sooner than in 5 days, and you must remember to periodically turn the pieces on the tray.

It’s very easy to have eggplant on your table all year round. Prepare the product in any way described and enjoy your favorite dish whenever you please.

Storing dried eggplants

You can dry the vegetable in your own home or apartment, it doesn’t matter much. This procedure requires young, not large and mature fruits. They are cut into 4 parts, filled with marinade and left for 3-4 hours. They can be seasoned with spices if desired. Then wring out, hang or lay out in a dry and sunny place until completely dry.

Photo 3. While drying, hang the eggplants at a short distance from each other

How to store dried

Dried blue ones resemble mushrooms. We wash them, cut off the tails, spoiled areas and cut them into slices or circles. We string them on a thread. Then we put it on a baking sheet and put it in the oven. We keep the eggplants at 150 degrees for 12 minutes. We take it out and hang it in a dry place until completely dry.

There is also the option of dried eggplants, which are salted before being placed in the oven. Thanks to this, the bitter taste is removed.

Dried and dried vegetables are stored in glass containers or fabric bags at a temperature not exceeding 28 degrees. Such preparations can be stored for 2-3 years.

Photo 4. Do not over-dry vegetables in the oven, they must be dried

Answers to frequently asked questions from gardeners and gardeners

Question No. 1. What methods exist for drying eggplants?

You can dry vegetables: in the fresh air, in special dryers, in an apartment, hang them on a thread or lay them out on a flat surface. When drying outside, wrap them in gauze to prevent flies from landing on them. If drying in a dryer or oven, do not do it at high temperatures. And when drying naturally indoors, do not forget to turn them over periodically. You can dry it whole, but cut it into 4 parts, not reaching the base, or cut it into arbitrary pieces.

Photo 5. Store preserved food in a cool, dark place

Question No. 2. What options exist for salting blueberries for winter storage?

Name	Salting process
Eggplants in brine	Chopped vegetables are poured with brine and placed in a dark place.
Eggplants under pressure	Sprinkle whole or chopped vegetables with salt and place under pressure. First at room temperature, and then in a cool place.

Question No. 3. Where and how should you not store eggplants?

You can’t store blue ones in light and in a warm place. Even at a temperature of +2 degrees, vegetables can be stored for no more than a month. If they are exposed to sunlight, their taste becomes unpleasant, and the fruits themselves can cause poisoning. Under such conditions, a substance is produced - solanine, which is harmful to the human body.

Question No. 4. In what cases can blue ones deteriorate and rot?

Fruits develop gray rot at a temperature of + 10 degrees. Avoid excessive humidity or high temperatures in areas where vegetables are stored.

Photo 6. Do not allow elevated temperatures in the room where the blue ones are stored, this can provoke the development of diseases

Question No. 5. Why can’t eggplants be stored next to other vegetables and herbs?

Eggplants absorb all odors, so they need to be stored separately from other products. It is advisable to use airtight containers, glass containers or plastic bags for this.

How to process?

It is quite difficult to store the “blue” ones fresh. They have a short shelf life, it quickly loses its beneficial properties, and if the conditions are unsuitable, then the period of its suitability for food is reduced. Therefore, you need to know how to properly store fruits.

Most often, eggplants are stored in the form of freezing or homemade preparations. These methods allow long-term use of the vegetable. However, after defrosting, the product loses its shape and, during heat treatment, turns into a puree-like mass.

This has almost no effect on its beneficial properties, but not everyone likes it. Pickled and salted blues in jars also last longer than fresh ones, but similar processing methods change their taste.

In other words, these preservation methods are not suitable for everyone. This explains the interest in how eggplants are stored at home, without using freezing or other types of processing.

These fruits are very dependent on temperature conditions and air humidity. At high humidity, the product lasts for a long time, but we must not forget about the temperature. First of all, you need to place fresh vegetables in a dark place where there is ventilation.

As for the temperature suitable for these purposes, the lower it is, the better. If the room temperature is above 10 degrees, the fruits will remain edible for only a few days. At two degrees the vegetable can be preserved for a month.

Freezing is considered the optimal method (it ensures the preservation of beneficial qualities for several months), but it affects the consistency of the product.

Thus, it is quite difficult to preserve the product for more than a month. It is advisable to marinate, salt or freeze them after this period. This means that to preserve the product for a long time, processing is required in one of the following ways:

drying;
salting;
conservation;
freezing

Living in an apartment significantly complicates the task if you decide to leave the product fresh. Usually the most suitable conditions for storing vegetables are in the cellar, which not all residents of apartment buildings have. Room mode does not suit them, and organizing special conditions and a separate room is quite difficult.

However, in this situation there is a way out. Eggplants can be left on the balcony or put in the refrigerator. If you choose a balcony, you need to carefully monitor the condition of the product, check for rot and not allow the fruits to wither. “Blue” ones are also stored for quite a long time in the refrigerator (not in the freezer). You just need to provide them with access to air and prevent water from getting on them. Therefore, it is not advisable to place them in plastic bags.

The best varieties of eggplants for winter storage

If you plan to store eggplants for the winter in the future, then when planting, choose late varieties of eggplants. These include: “Sofya” and “Mishutka”. They ripen in the autumn months.

Sophia is a blue, pear-shaped, round, dark purple color. A very productive variety. It has no bitterness, a sweetish taste, with dense and white flesh. It can be grown in greenhouses and open ground.

Mishutka also has a pear-shaped round shape, black and purple color. Little bitterness and just the right amount of sweetness. The plant is resistant to diseases and external factors.

Eggplants: storage and processing

How to store eggplants at home.

Eggplant fruits have an oblong shape and a dark purple color, often popularly called blue.

Eggplants are also popular as dishes that are loved not only by gourmets. How to store eggplants at home? The answer is simple, they can be dried, baked, salted, pickled, canned, frozen.

How to keep eggplants fresh

The main secret of how to keep eggplants fresh for as long as possible, probably many people know, is to carefully approach the selection of fruits.

Suitable for long-term storage are fairly young fruits that have a rich dark purple color with smooth, elastic and shiny skin and no damage or mold on the petioles or green sepals.

It is best to choose heavy eggplants among those of the same size. See if there are any dents left on the fruit after pressing with your finger? A remaining dent means that the eggplant is overripe.

If you grow your own eggplants, plant late-ripening varieties for long-term storage.