✅ How long can fresh chanterelles be stored in the refrigerator, how to store chanterelles after harvesting

Chanterelles: description and photo

Chanterelles grow in groups in coniferous and deciduous forests from mid-June to the end of September, and they can be distinguished from other types of mushrooms by a number of specific external signs.

A botanical description of common chanterelles is presented below:

The thick stem of the mushroom has a height of 3–10 cm and expands from bottom to top, merging with the cap.
The fruit body is orange or yellow.
The diameter of the cap is from 3 to 14 cm. It is asymmetrical, can have a funnel shape, and can also be spread out or convex.
The upper part is covered with smooth and thin skin, which is difficult to separate. The edges of the cap are wavy and curled down.
The pulp is elastic, has a dense or fibrous structure, and is colored white. With slight pressure it turns reddish.
The lower part of the cap consists of straight folds - pseudoplates, which flow down the stem.
The spores are elliptical in shape and yellow in color.
The taste of mushrooms is sour, and their pulp exudes a light aroma reminiscent of dried fruits.

How to properly store fresh chanterelles in the refrigerator

It is most convenient to keep fresh chanterelles in the refrigerator - there optimal temperature conditions are created for the product. But so that mushrooms do not lose their valuable nutritional qualities and good appearance, they need to be properly prepared for storage. It is also important to know how long fresh produce can be kept in the refrigerator or freezer.

Preparation for storage

Cut fruiting bodies are usually placed in baskets or boxes and then transported to the processing site, as a result of which part of the harvested crop may become crushed or damaged.

Before storing, the product must undergo the following preparation:

the caps are cleaned of adhering debris, leaves and grass;
Rotten and crushed mushrooms are thrown away - they are not suitable for storage;
the surface of the cap and the plate on its lower surface are wiped with a soft sponge or brush to remove dust and dirt;
damaged parts of the fruiting body are removed with a knife;
Mushrooms collected in damp weather are laid out in a thin layer in a warm room so that they dry out a little.

How and for how long is the product stored in the refrigerator at home?

Mushrooms absorb foreign odors, so they should be stored separately from other products (the principles and order of placement, as well as the compatibility of food products when stored at home and in stores are described here). It is not recommended to leave the product outside the refrigerator at room temperature, because... mushrooms quickly deteriorate and after a few hours are already hazardous to health.

How to properly store mushrooms:

Freshly picked mushrooms are rinsed and left in salt water to get rid of insects.
Then they are laid out on the table and inspected for darkening. Areas that differ in color are cut off with a knife.
When the mushrooms are dry, they are placed in a deep container, covered with a napkin and placed in the refrigerator.

Shelf life depends on temperature:

at temperatures from 7 to 10 °C, mushrooms are stored for 12-17 hours;
at temperatures from 0 to 5 °C – 1-3 days;
at temperatures from -2 to 0 °C – 3-4 days.

Keeping the product in the refrigerator for longer is not recommended.

Homemade canning

Pickled mushrooms should be stored in a cool place. Suitable:

pantry;
cellar;
balcony.

The main thing is to keep the temperature around +8°C. The blanks should be rolled into glass jars. If the lid is metal, the mushrooms can be stored for up to a year, and if the lid is glass, up to two years, since the material is more resistant to acidic and salty environments.

Boiled (boiled after harvesting)

It is recommended to cook mushrooms as soon as possible after picking. If this is not possible, they are boiled in salted water and stored in the refrigerator. This way the product will not lose its properties within three days. The optimal temperature is up to +4°C.

If the refrigerator does not maintain a stable temperature, it is better to fry or marinate boiled mushrooms a day in advance.

Fried

It is permissible to store fried mushrooms in the refrigerator for up to three days, but it is recommended to eat them in the first 24 hours.

Fried preparations can also be stored in the freezer. How long you can keep frozen fried food in the freezer depends on its power. In refrigerators with blast freezing and freezer temperatures down to -20 °C, fried mushrooms will last up to two years. After heat treatment, the product is cooled to room temperature, then laid out in containers and stored.

Salty

Salted mushrooms are stored in a cool place at temperatures from 0 to +15 ° C and humidity up to 75%. It is recommended to keep the preparations in the refrigerator. If the storage conditions are followed, mushrooms can be stored for six months to a year. After uncorking the jar, the product must be consumed immediately; open storage for several days is only permissible for preparations based on a strong vinegar solution.

How to store fried chanterelles

To increase the shelf life of chanterelles, they are subject to heat treatment. After this, the mushrooms can also be kept in the refrigerator or frozen.

To preserve fried chanterelles, you need:

Sort the mushrooms and rinse them thoroughly in running water. Large specimens can be cut into pieces.
Boil water on the stove in a suitable sized saucepan. Add a little salt.
Place the fruiting bodies in boiling water. Cook for 20 minutes over medium heat until they sink to the bottom of the container.
Place the boiled mushrooms in a colander and allow excess liquid to drain.
Heat a frying pan on the stove. Pour vegetable oil into it.
Place the mushrooms in a frying pan and fry them over medium heat for about 20 minutes until tender, stirring occasionally with a spatula.
Place the finished product in jars or small trays. Fill the containers with the oil remaining after frying.
Allow the mushrooms to cool at room temperature and then place them in the refrigerator or freezer.

Fried chanterelles do not spoil at temperatures up to +2°C for 4 days, and they can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Storing pickled chanterelles

If you like pickled mushrooms, use a simple recipe for preparing them. To get started, gather all the necessary ingredients:

Cleaned and prepared mushrooms – 2 kg.
Table vinegar – 60 ml.
Sugar – 100 g.
Salt – 50 g.
Water – 1.5 l.
10 pieces. cloves and 15 pcs. allspice.

The mushrooms must first be soaked in salted, acidified water (2 g of citric acid and 10 g of salt per liter) and left for half an hour to an hour. After that, follow the simple instructions:

Wash the mushrooms and place in an enamel pan, add 1.5 liters of water and place on the stove. When the contents boil, reduce the heat and keep the mushrooms until they completely sink to the bottom.
Drain the broth into another container, leave the chanterelles in a colander to drain well. Add sugar, salt, cloves and pepper to the liquid. Place on the stove again and bring to a boil.
Add the mushrooms and simmer over low heat for 7 minutes, then add vinegar and simmer for another 5 minutes.
Next, you need to distribute the chanterelles into jars, pour boiling marinade over them and roll them up. Turn over, wrap and leave for about a day. Then transfer the container to a cool, dark place.

Important! This is a standard marinating recipe; you can use any other if you wish.

Pickled chanterelles can be eaten no earlier than a month after harvesting, do not forget about this nuance. They remain suitable for at least six months, so you can enjoy your favorite mushrooms for a long time.

How to store dried chanterelles

You can preserve the product for the winter by drying it in the sun and in the oven. After this, the mushrooms can be used whole or ground into powder, obtaining an aromatic seasoning for soups and main dishes.

To preserve a dried product, you need:

Sort through the mushrooms, clean them of dirt using a napkin (you cannot wash the product in water).
Remove the stems and string the caps on a strong thread. Hang them in the sun until they become slightly dry.
Remove the caps from the thread and place them on a baking sheet in a thin layer.
Dry the mushrooms in the oven at +60°C until they begin to bend easily.
Transfer the dried caps into paper or fabric bags. You can use clean jars with screw caps.

It is recommended to keep dried chanterelles in a dark and dry place with good ventilation, away from products with a strong odor.
Shelf life is 1–2 years. Every housewife wants to preserve fresh chanterelles for several days or months, using them to prepare various dishes. This article provides a detailed answer to the question of how to properly freeze and dry mushrooms so that they do not lose their original taste and aroma.

Freezing methods

The most common ways to freeze chanterelles for the winter in the freezer are the following:

in raw form;
in the state of semi-finished products after preliminary boiling, frying, stewing;
in concentrated form of bouillon cubes.

When fresh, it makes sense to freeze only young, strong specimens.

Prepared raw mushrooms are frozen in two stages. First, they are laid out on a flat tray or baking sheet in a single layer so that they do not lie close together to ensure even cooling. The duration of the primary freezing process is 12-15 hours at a temperature of −16… −18 ℃. Then the hardened chanterelles are quickly packaged into containers or sealed bags where foreign odors and moisture cannot penetrate.

Freezing thermally treated mushrooms will require additional time and some effort, but subsequently their use in the process of preparing various dishes will be as convenient as possible, and storage in the chamber will be more economical.

To prepare boiled chanterelles, as a rule, a standard recipe is used: for 1 kilogram of mushrooms - 2 liters of water and 1 tablespoon of coarse rock salt.

When boiling, you can add onion, bay leaf, allspice peas, cloves, rosemary and other spices to the brine.

The washed and chopped mushrooms are placed in boiling brine and cooked for no more than 8-10 minutes after boiling again, since with prolonged cooking the pieces may lose the integrity of their shape. Next, they are thrown onto a sieve, washed under running water, and then dried on a clean towel or paper napkins. Then the boiled semi-finished product is loosely laid out in one layer on a tray and sent to the freezer for 15-30 minutes. Subsequently, just as in the previous method, it is packaged in containers or thick bags and put into a chamber for further storage.

When frying for winter preparation, it is not recommended to use spices and herbs.

The recipe for fried chanterelles is relevant for those who strive to preserve their fragrant aroma. The mushrooms are cut into slices and immediately fried (to freeze the semi-finished product, you can do without pre-boiling) until all the liquid is released. Then pour in a little vegetable oil and continue frying until golden brown. The addition of spices, herbs and any vegetables, with the exception of onions, is undesirable. After the mixture has cooled, you need to drain it in a colander or spread it on a paper towel to get rid of excess fat. The prepared mushrooms are distributed into containers, tightly closed with lids and immediately sent to the freezer.

The recipe for mushroom broth cubes, although not the most ergonomic, is very beneficial from the point of view of storing the product. Such a preparation will serve as a good flavoring for a future soup or vegetable stew. Mushroom broth is prepared using boiled water with the addition of pepper, salt and other seasonings (to taste). The cooking time depends on how concentrated you want the final product to be. Some housewives boil down to 2/3 or half the original volume of liquid. During the cooking process, it is necessary to remove any foam that appears. The finished broth along with the mushrooms is poured into ice molds or small containers, cooled, then packed in clean bags to avoid extraneous odors and placed in the freezer.

It is more convenient to transfer frozen cubes into a common bag so that they do not take up much space

Preparing mushrooms for storage

Chanterelles must be carefully prepared before storing. They should be processed as quickly as possible: sorted, remove crumpled, wormy or old specimens, and clear the remaining mass of sand, leaves, branches, needles and other debris. If the apartment is not hot, you can store fresh chanterelles for a maximum of a day.

When preparing mushrooms, you need to carefully process the back side of the cap, on which a lot of dirt usually accumulates. To do this, chanterelles are washed under running water, then laid out on a towel and dried.

If the mushrooms grew in a spruce forest or were collected in a dry summer, they may taste bitter even after freezing. To remove the bitterness, the chanterelles need to be boiled first. They are poured into a saucepan, filled with cold water and put on fire. After boiling, the product must be salted, foam removed and cooked for 15-20 minutes. Boiled chanterelles should be drained in a colander, rinsed with cold water and dried on a towel.

Important! You can only eat mushrooms that you are 100% sure are safe. Approach the selection and preparation of mushrooms with full responsibility.

Storing boiled chanterelles in the refrigerator

To increase the storage time of mushrooms, you can boil them. To do this, perform the following steps:

Wash the chanterelles using a colander and place them in a saucepan.
Cover the contents with water and put on fire.
Bring to a boil and boil for 20 minutes.
Drain the water and let the mushrooms cool.
Fill a plastic tray with mushrooms and place in the refrigerator.

The boiled product can be stored in the refrigerator from several days to five days at a temperature of +3....+8º C. After this, the chanterelles can be fried or used to make soup. Although the aroma will be partially lost during initial cooking, it will be possible to keep them in the refrigerator for almost a week without harm to human health.

How long can chanterelles be stored in the refrigerator?

If you don't have time to process the mushrooms after picking them, storing them at low temperatures may be a good option. Chanterelles can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours. If the mushrooms are wet, the shelf life without processing is reduced to several hours, so it is recommended to immediately boil the chanterelles (in this form they can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days).

For longer storage, it is recommended to freeze chanterelles. After drying, they should be placed in plastic containers or plastic bags and placed in the freezer.

You can also pour the brine in which they were boiled over the chanterelles, which will provide a flavorful base for fish soup, solyanka or other soup.

It is necessary to put one serving of mushrooms into each container, since re-freezing them will lead to loss of quality. The shelf life of frozen chanterelles is no more than 4 months. The product must be defrosted at room temperature.

Rules and terms of storage in the freezer

Raw chanterelles can easily retain their aroma and all their beneficial properties in the freezer for a year after harvesting. For boiled or fried mushrooms, these periods are reduced to 3–4 months. To extend the shelf life of chanterelles, containers for storing them must first be cleaned with a soap solution. This will eliminate bacteria, which are the main cause of mushroom spoilage. Otherwise, their storage does not require special knowledge and skills.

Store chanterelles in a separate place, at an average temperature of –20…–25°C. At the same time, sharp fluctuations in temperature should be avoided throughout the entire storage period. That is why, as the chanterelles are removed, defrosting can only be done once, since repeated cooling will lead to their aesthetic unsuitability.

You will be interested to know how quickly chanterelles grow in the forest even after rain.

Chanterelles are ideal for both seasonal consumption and freezing for the winter; boiled, fried and raw fruit bodies are used. Methods that involve preliminary heat treatment are considered the most universal, since any mushrooms can be prepared in this way. Freezing raw is suitable for small young chanterelles; during long-term freezing, their tissues better retain elasticity and other characteristics important for further preparation.

How to preserve chanterelles for the winter?

For long-term storage, it is recommended to dry the mushrooms. The easiest way is to dry it in the sun. In this case, the prepared chanterelles are strung on a strong thread and placed in a well-ventilated, dry place protected from insects. The process takes at least 1 week.

Another popular method is drying chanterelles in the oven. Dry mushrooms should be cleaned, the caps separated from the stems, cut into slices if necessary and placed on a wire rack or baking sheet. The mushrooms are placed in an oven heated to 45 ℃ and slightly dried. After removing the primary moisture, the temperature is increased and the chanterelles are removed from the baking sheet as they dry. During processing, you need to open the door slightly for free air circulation and remove excess moisture. Chanterelle mushrooms can be stored in dried form throughout the winter.

A microwave is also used for drying. Sliced chanterelles are kept at minimum power for 20 minutes. Next, the microwave oven is ventilated for about 5 minutes, after which the process is repeated until the mushrooms are completely dry. If the chanterelles are overdried, it is recommended to grind them in a coffee grinder, then mix them with spices and add them as a seasoning to mushroom dishes.

Where is the best place to store dried mushrooms at home?

So, the useful gifts of the forest have been sorted and dried, now we need to find a place where they could be stored in the best way.

If we are talking about a country house, this is, first of all, an attic - unheated, dry and well ventilated. During the cold season, it is easy to maintain a temperature of 11 – 15ºС; it is considered optimal for storing dry mushrooms. It is better to avoid the cellar due to high humidity, which will lead to molding of the product.

The attic intended for storage must be additionally insulated, the cracks must be sealed to prevent drafts and temperature changes, and, in addition, the wooden surfaces must be treated with antiseptics.

Storage in bundles

If the mushrooms were dried naturally, strung on twine or fishing line, you can hang them in this form in the attic. And to protect against dust and household pests, wrap it with natural fabric or gauze folded several times, pre-soaked in saline solution.

Drying in the form of a “garland” is convenient because the dehydration process is easy to control. As long as the mushrooms hold well on the string, they have not lost their condition and retain the necessary elasticity.

Storage in cardboard or wooden boxes

This method is used when there is a large harvest of mushrooms. The drying material is poured into a cardboard or wooden box lined with paper, another layer of sheets is placed on top and buried, as airtight as possible.

The attic is not the best place to store mushrooms. There is a danger of sudden temperature changes, which will lead to an increase in air humidity or spoilage of the product by insect pests.

It is not difficult to identify spoiled pieces of mushrooms even by touch: they will be soft and moist.

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How to store dried mushrooms in an apartment

A well-ventilated, dark pantry can be a worthy replacement for an attic if we are going to store mushrooms in a city apartment. There is nothing stopping you from hanging drying here on strings or putting them in boxes, as already described above.

However, the apartment has a slightly different microclimate than in a country house, and there is also much less free space, and therefore it is advisable to place the workpieces compactly.

In glass jars

Some housewives are worried whether it is possible to store dried gifts of nature in jars, because hermetically sealed containers increase the risk of rotting and mold. However, this method is the most convenient for a city apartment.

“Gifts of the forest” isolated in glass containers are kept in kitchen cabinets without fear that they will absorb extraneous odors or become damp due to high humidity in the room.

Insect pests will also not “get” to the tasty harvest.

And so that the product does not spoil from exhaustion, it must be properly prepared:

Jars (preferably made of dark glass) are pre-sterilized and dried.
Mushrooms are carefully checked before planting, removing all suspicious specimens.
The jars are sealed with vacuum lids - with this method, drying is stored 1.5 times longer.

Storage in linen bags

Fabric is less reliable than glass, but the bags take up less space on the shelves, which sometimes plays a decisive role.

Packaging made from natural linen or cotton allows the product to “breathe”, but provides little protection from pests – this is its main drawback. You can correct the situation by boiling the bags in a concentrated saline solution, and then drying them well (it is recommended to iron them additionally).

How to prepare chanterelles for storage

Immediately after the mushrooms are brought from the forest, they are sorted. You should not leave for storage those that have wormholes or damage. Old and too soft specimens are also removed. Dark spots and parts that have begun to rot are cut out with a ceramic knife. Afterwards, they are cleaned of natural debris (needles, sand, leaves and twigs), paying special attention to the lamellar side of the caps, where foreign particles most often accumulate and insects hide.

To better clean, mushrooms can be rinsed under running water and then dried well on a paper towel.

Chanterelles that grew in a spruce forest, or were collected during very dry weather, have a slightly bitter taste. This taste remains even when they have been frozen. Therefore, the mushrooms are boiled first.

Pour the chanterelles into an enamel container, add cold water and wait until it boils.
After removing the resulting foam, add salt and cook for another 20 minutes.
Next, drain the mushrooms using a colander, rinse under running water and dry well on a paper towel.

Preparing for freezing

Regardless of what type of mushrooms are frozen, they must be properly prepared before the procedure. This will help in the future not only to simplify the preparation of the product, but also to avoid unpleasant bitterness and other flavors that are not characteristic of mushrooms.

First of all, the chanterelles need to be well sorted and packaged by size; small or medium-sized fruiting bodies are best suited for harvesting. It is better to avoid overripe ones, as low temperatures can negatively affect the elasticity of the pulp.

Next, each mushroom must be cleaned of any remaining dirt and forest litter. Particular attention should be paid to the cap, where huge amounts of sand and other small pollutants often accumulate. After this, you need to remove the lower part of the stem with the remnants of the mycelium, as well as cut off putrefactive lesions and traces of insect damage.

Important! Chanterelles spoil instantly, so they should be placed in the freezer no later than 24 hours after collection.

At the end of pre-preparation, the mushrooms must be washed under running water. Only cold liquid is suitable for this, since hot water can damage the consistency of the stem and cap. At the same time, it is not recommended to soak mushrooms; they are capable of accumulating moisture, which will certainly lead to a decrease in the elasticity of the pulp after defrosting. Washed chanterelles must be wiped dry with paper towels, otherwise they will become covered with an ice crust.