How long do boiled mushrooms last in the freezer?

The time for collecting mushrooms is limited to several months, and so that you can prepare dishes from them all year round, they are frozen. Let's talk further about how and how long you can store frozen mushrooms.

Mostly raw mushrooms are frozen, but you can also boil, fry or blanch them. Whatever method is chosen, the products must first be prepared.

Small specimens are frozen whole, and large ones are cut into pieces. They are carefully examined to ensure that no wormy or spoiled ones are found. Pay attention to the fact that the mushrooms have a dense consistency.

What mushrooms can be frozen

Freeze any species that were collected away from cities and highways. It is best if they are freshly harvested, strong, and without visible damage.

After defrosting, chanterelles, boletus and honey mushrooms retain their taste better . Boletus and boletus are also well stored frozen .

Russulas, saffron milk caps and boletus are preserved a little .

Since not everyone has the opportunity to collect them themselves, many city residents buy oyster mushrooms or champignons for their table. But it’s hardly worth freezing these species, because they are available for sale all year round.

There are species that are called conditionally edible. These are russula, milk mushrooms, as well as trumpets, etc. They contain toxic substances that can only be removed by heat treatment. Naturally, such mushrooms are frozen only after cooking .

It is not necessary to heat treat the following types before freezing:

white,
boletus,
boletus,
champignons and chanterelles.

Preparing to Freeze

Freshly picked mushrooms are washed and dried.
After that, they are placed in one layer on a baking sheet and placed in the freezer.
When 12 hours have passed, they are taken out and packaged in small portions in bags or containers, and then sent back to the freezer.

Cook the mushrooms for up to 10 minutes before freezing, and blanch for just a minute. In both cases, after cooking, they are immersed in ice water for 1 minute. Then they are dried on towels and placed in containers for freezing.

If the mushrooms were fried whole with vegetable oil, they are laid out on napkins to remove excess fat, and then packaged in plastic bags.

How to freeze pickles

Mushrooms can even be frozen salted and pickled. To do this, drain all the brine and package them in containers for freezing.

But this storage method does not always lead to positive results. You need to be prepared for the fact that after defrosting the quality of the food will not change for the better. Therefore, many housewives simply boil mushrooms, freeze them, and marinate them after defrosting.

Pickled mushrooms tolerate freezing much better than pickled ones. Before freezing, it is enough to drain the excess liquid and place the pickles in the freezer.

How long can frozen mushrooms be stored in the freezer?

Freshly picked and frozen mushrooms are stored for quite a long time. If you set the freezer temperature correctly, they will practically not lose their quality for six months. Approximate storage times and temperatures can be found in the table below:

Temperature

Shelf life

If you freeze fried mushrooms, you need to know that at any temperature they can be stored for no more than 3 months. And if the products were boiled or blanched, their shelf life increases to 5 months.

To defrost mushrooms, move them from the freezer to the refrigerator shelf. And they are consumed immediately, since they cannot be re-frozen: they turn limp and become tasteless. That is why it is recommended to freeze products in small portions.

Dishes made from these wonderful products can be present in the human diet all year round; you just need to know how and for how long frozen mushrooms can be stored.

Mushrooms are considered a perishable product. They are stored in the apartment for about 12 hours. In the refrigerator, storage time increases to 7 days. The question arises: how to preserve them for a longer period? Let's figure out whether it is possible to store mushrooms in the freezer, which of them are suitable for long-term storage, how to freeze them and what the shelf life depends on.

Danger of overdue

The danger of mushrooms lies in possible severe food poisoning , so care should be taken with long-term stored product, even if there are no visible signs of spoilage.

to get rid of an expired product than to later eliminate the possible consequences of mushroom poisoning.

Watch a video on how to freeze fresh mushrooms for winter use:

Didn't find the answer to your question? Find out how to solve exactly your problem - call right now:
It's fast and free!

What mushrooms can be stored in the freezer?

Forest mushrooms grown independently on the site and purchased are suitable for freezing.

According to their structure they are divided into:

tubular (boletus, boletus, porcini mushroom, etc.);
lamellar (milk milk, russula, volushka, honey mushrooms, etc.);
marsupials (morel, truffle, stitch).

Marsupials must be boiled before freezing. It is advisable to boil lamellar ones too. Tubular ones are frozen raw. They have a porous cap that absorbs a lot of moisture when boiled, so after defrosting they become watery.

How to prepare mushrooms for freezing

Mushrooms are perishable foods. After collection or purchase, they are immediately processed and sorted by type. Each is frozen separately and in different ways: tubular - in raw form, marsupial and lamellar - in boiled form. Whole, elastic, young specimens are selected. After sorting, they are cleared of debris, and the lower part of the stem is cut off if it is in the ground. Contaminated caps are cleaned with a knife or sponge. Cut off all insect-damaged areas and dark spots.

Before freezing raw mushrooms, wipe or wash with water, do not soak. Then lay them out on a paper towel to dry. If you plan to boil or fry them before freezing, pre-soak them in salt water so that all the dirt is soaked off and hidden worms come to the surface. Then they are washed in cold water and placed in a colander to drain excess moisture.

To get a quality product, adhere to the following rules:

Only whole, undamaged specimens are used for freezing.
Do not soak raw before freezing. When frozen, excess moisture crystallizes and destroys the structure of the mushroom.
To maintain the shape of whole mushrooms, they are frozen on a tray and then placed into storage containers.
To preserve color, blanching is used before freezing.
The storage container is filled completely, leaving a minimum amount of air. This preserves the natural mushroom flavor.
To protect the product from foreign odors, use airtight storage containers.
Instant freezing allows you to preserve vitamins and nutrients to the maximum.
Thawed product cannot be re-frozen. Therefore, mushrooms are frozen in small single portions.
When freezing a cooked product with broth, the taste and aroma are preserved.
Defrost mushrooms on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator - this way they retain their taste and smell.

Useful tips

Raw mushrooms should be defrosted in the refrigerator. The best option is to leave them overnight on the bottom shelf and remove them from the container in the morning.
Boiled, stewed or fried preparations do not require special defrosting. You can shake them out of the bag directly into a saucepan with broth or into a frying pan - they will defrost during the cooking process.
You need to freeze in small portions - each of them is intended for one time. After defrosting, the product rapidly loses nutrients and taste, its shelf life is significantly reduced and its appearance deteriorates.
The best option for freezing are small young white and redheads, which are convenient to freeze whole. Their dense pulp perfectly retains its shape, preserves its taste and rich aroma.
Under no circumstances should wormy specimens be frozen. If you don’t want to cut them, but you suspect they may be wormy, leave them in salt water for 2-3 hours so that the worms come out on their own.
Instead of boiling, blanching is sometimes used. The mushrooms are dipped in boiling water for a minute, and then discarded in a colander and immersed in ice water.
It is useful for owners of large freezers who often make preparations to put marks on the containers - to write down the freezing date. This is especially true for semi-finished products, which have a shorter shelf life and should be eaten faster.
Frozen mushrooms have the property of absorbing flavors, so they should be placed in the freezer separately from other products (in tightly closed containers or special ziplock bags).
Tubular varieties are recommended to be frozen raw or fried without prior cooking or blanching. When boiled, they become saturated with moisture and become watery, which negatively affects the taste, preservation and appearance.
If you need to save space in the freezer, it is better to freeze pre-boiled or fried preparations. During the cooking process, they lose volume and are compactly placed in bags. If you want to stock up on fresh mushrooms, cut them into 1 cm thick slices.
Never put hot mushrooms in the freezer after boiling or frying - condensation will form on them, which will eventually turn into an ice crust. In addition, you should not freeze wet specimens - the moisture in them will also form ice crystals. However, if you plan to cook mushroom soup soon, you can freeze the main ingredient for it along with the broth.

By following all these simple rules and recommendations, you can delight your friends and family all winter with wonderful dishes made from the amazing gifts of the forest - mushrooms.

In what mode and for how long can frozen mushrooms be stored in the freezer?

Mushrooms are frozen whole at a temperature of -28°C, sliced or caps at a temperature from -18 to -20°C. The shelf life of frozen mushrooms is up to 1 year.

It depends on the temperature maintained in the freezer:

up to 4 months at temperatures from -12 to -14°C;
up to 6 months at temperatures from -14 to -18°C;
up to 1 year at temperatures from -18 to -24°C.

How long can boiled frozen mushrooms be stored in the freezer? The shelf life of boiled and blanched is 5 months, fried is 3 months.

For storage use plastic containers or plastic bags.

How to freeze for the winter: all methods

For the winter, mushrooms are frozen fresh, boiled or fried. Before freezing, they are sorted, cleaned of debris and dirt, and damaged parts are removed.

If frozen fresh, rinse before storing and then dry on a paper towel. Mushrooms that will be boiled or fried are pre-soaked in salted water (200 g of salt per 5 liters of water). Then rinse and drain in a colander to drain excess liquid.

Fresh

Tubular ones are frozen fresh. Small specimens are frozen whole, large ones are cut into slices 1-2 cm thick. Place on a tray and place in the freezer for 12 hours. Then they are taken out, packaged in plastic containers or plastic bags in small portions and stored in the freezer.

Advice. To make it easier to keep track of the expiration date, label the storage container indicating the freezing date.

Boiled

Before freezing, lamellar and marsupials are boiled. They are cleaned, cut, dipped in boiling water and boiled for 5-10 minutes.

Then place in a colander to drain excess water. After cooling, place into plastic containers or plastic bags in portions. Enter the freezing date and put it in the freezer.

Fried

All types of mushrooms are suitable for this freezing method. They are cut into slices and fried in a small amount of vegetable oil until golden brown for 20-30 minutes. Spices and salt are not added.

Fresh

Mushroom fans love to collect these fruits with their own hands in forests, forest plantations, gardens, and grass along roads.

A mistake can be very costly, not only for the collector himself, but also for all his companions.

It is safer to buy this product in a store.

But fresh mushrooms also have a shelf life: regardless of the variety, you should not keep them for a long time after picking, but prepare any dish as quickly as possible or marinate them with salt.

How to choose in the market and in the store?

Fresh mushrooms look very appetizing, which cannot be said about a stale product.

There may be stale fruits at the market and even in the store; they often make a mix of stale and fresh mushrooms in order to get rid of stale goods, the quality of which decreases every hour.

When choosing this product, you should pay attention to the following points:

in agaric mushrooms, like champignons, the lower part of the cap darkens, losing its pleasant pink color;
the top of the cap dries out, begins to crack, and dark spots may appear;
no bright fresh smell;
When the leg is compressed, there is no elasticity, voids are visible.

If mucus is found on the caps, then this is the last stage at which consumption is undesirable. There is no need to take mushrooms that raise doubts about their freshness, even if the price is halved.

Purchased

Store-bought champignons and oyster mushrooms are grown artificially, so they are quite good quality, unless they have deteriorated from age.

It is necessary to carefully sort through the purchased product, rejecting even those that have the slightest damage: such fruits will not be stored.

Mushrooms should be used immediately for preparing food, and only the freshest, strongest, and undamaged ones should be left for storage.

It is best to put unwashed, dry fresh champignons and oyster mushrooms in a paper bag and put them in a vegetable drawer, where they can be stored for a week at a temperature of +1 - +4 degrees.

If you pack it in a plastic bag, then in this case air access to the product will be cut off, the mushrooms will begin to rot, so it is hardly worth keeping them in plastic for longer than 5 - 7 days.

Without packaging, that is, in bulk in a vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, the mushrooms will last 3-4 days. Outside the refrigerator, that is, at room temperature, champignons or oyster mushrooms can be kept for no more than a day.

It is safer to freeze mushrooms. Boiled champignons and oyster mushrooms are best stored, for which they should be cooled after cooking and placed in a plastic container or bag. Do the same with fried ones.

Freshly picked

If it is not possible to process them immediately after collecting mushrooms, or in the case when too many have been collected, porcini mushrooms, chanterelles, pig mushrooms, honey mushrooms, and other freshly picked fruits should be placed in the refrigerator, but not longer than 12-24 hours.

Before putting the collected forest gifts into the refrigerator, you need to sort them out, remove debris, stuck pine needles, leaves, soil, and damaged parts.

Chanterelles should not be frozen raw: bitterness will be heard. To avoid this, they need to be boiled before freezing.

First actions after collection

All the specimens seen, except for the frankly poisonous and wormy ones, often end up in the basket. Therefore, forest and store-bought mushrooms are sorted out and lethargic, overripe, wormy and false, poisonous specimens are discarded. Minor damage is cut out. The lower part of the legs is trimmed and peeled.

Wet mushrooms should be cleaned immediately after rain. Dry harvest can be stored in a cool cellar for 12 hours.

Sorting

After collection, they are sorted by type - lamellar, tubular or spongy. Some varieties are more suitable for pickles, others for drying, so they are divided according to the type of further processing: for freezing, pickling or preparing boiled and fried dishes.

Having bitterness

Conditionally edible mushrooms are bitter: milk mushrooms, volushki, russula. They are salted and pickled. To remove the bitter taste, the mushrooms need to be boiled in an enamel pan. Processing methods:

pour half a tablespoon of salt into a liter of boiling water, cook the mushrooms for 15 minutes, then cool in cold water;
pour mushrooms into cold salted water, after boiling, remove from heat and leave to cool in the same pan;
cleaned mushrooms are soaked for up to 6 hours in cold water with salt or vinegar, then scalded or boiled.

A decoction that has absorbed bitterness cannot be used further in cooking.

Lamellar

The inner side of the caps is divided by plates of milk mushrooms and russula. Before cooking, they are soaked in water for 2 hours, adding a tablespoon of salt.

Spongy

The caps on the reverse side are porous and resemble boletus sponges; they are oily. The spongy structure quickly absorbs moisture, so they are soaked for 1-2 minutes or simply rinsed under running water.

Chanterelles

Orange mushrooms will not spoil in a day at 10-12 degrees Celsius. They accumulate the most useful substances in the first 5 hours after collection.

Umbrellas

Edible umbrella mushrooms differ from inedible ones by a movable “skirt” that encircles the stem. Only the caps are suitable for cooking. Smooth specimens are rinsed with water, rough specimens are scraped with a knife and then washed.

Preparation

After distribution, the mushrooms are ready for the next stage of processing: they are cleaned of adhering leaves and soil, and the skin is scraped off with a knife. To store frozen, mushrooms are rinsed in water, but then thoroughly dried.

Before cooking and frying, mushrooms are soaked in a saline solution for a day. Such a quarantine will rid the product of insects that have settled inside.

The minimum soaking time is 6 hours.

Features of storage of different types

Sponge and lamellar varieties differ slightly in storage methods, as they absorb moisture to varying degrees.

Chanterelles

How to store orange mushrooms:

do not wash before freezing - the variety absorbs moisture and then releases it in a closed bag, and the product becomes moldy;
cooking will rid the chanterelles of bitterness;
only the caps are dried;
The variety is stored for a long time in sterilized jars.

Sterilization method: pour mushrooms into a container, wipe the lid from the inside with alcohol, set it on fire and close the jar with it.

Champignon

How to store French mushrooms after purchase:

unwashed, uncleaned mushrooms can be kept on the middle shelf of the refrigerator in an open container for no longer than 3 days;
The product is stored in paper for 5-6 days at a temperature of +2 degrees;
It is not necessary to peel the champignons, but without the top skin they taste more tender;
Shelf life in the freezer is 6 months;
dried product is good for 12 months.

A bag of raw champignons cannot be frequently transferred in the refrigerator, as mechanical stress causes dark spots to appear on the surface of the caps. Blackened mushrooms are dangerous due to accumulated toxins.

White mushrooms

How to store boletus mushrooms:

the collected ones are stored in the cellar for up to 12 hours;
peeled mushrooms can be kept in the refrigerator for 3 days;
Before cooking, cut off the bottom of the leg;
Boletus mushrooms dried in the sun or in a dryer can be stored for a year;
mushroom powder is good for 3 years.

It is better to freeze boletus mushrooms raw, since they last longer when fresh than when cooked.

Veselki

The variety is used in folk medicine against skin, cancer and bronchopulmonary diseases. In cooking, they use young specimens that have not yet produced an arrow leg. Veselki are dried, ground into powder, or a medicinal alcohol tincture is prepared from the egg-shaped base.

Mushrooms cannot be found in stores, but only in the forest, from May to October, or they can be purchased from a mushroom picker you know. How to prepare and store the “fun” mushroom:

for preparing dishes, the ovoid base is cleared of the shell, and as a medicine it is used entirely;
dried at a temperature not exceeding 30 degrees;
the collected mushrooms are wiped with a damp cloth, without rinsing in water;
dried vesels are stored for 2 years in tightly closed glass jars in a dark, dry place.

The tincture is stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 years.

Oyster mushrooms

How to store woody mushrooms:

Do not soak before freezing, otherwise the taste will be lost due to excess moisture;
at -2 degrees, sealed packaging will retain freshness for 3 weeks;
in warmer conditions the shelf life is reduced to 5 days;
frozen boiled oyster mushrooms are stored for 8 months;
pickled mushrooms are edible for 1 year.

Whole caps retain aroma and taste better.

How to properly preserve at home

To prevent mushrooms from absorbing foreign odors, they should be stored in a sealed container. The best way to preserve mushrooms is to put them in the refrigerator or freezer.

In a refrigerator

The refrigerator is a universal storage for raw, cooked and canned mushrooms.

Fresh

Conditions for storing raw mushrooms:

after cleaning, they are placed in a glass jar and tightly closed with a lid;
shelf life at 7-10 degrees - 12-17 hours;
Fungi can be stored for 3-4 days at 0…+5 degrees;
Enameled dishes, a paper bag, and cotton fabric are suitable as containers.

If you store mushroom stock for longer than the specified period, it will become stained and dry out. Polyethylene is a poor wrapper for mushrooms because it traps air.

Boiled

Boiled mushrooms are placed in an enamel pan, plastic containers, glass jars. They will last 2-3 days on the bottom shelf.

Terrible disease botulism

Sausage poison (botulinum toxin) is one of the most powerful poisons. It affects muscles, causes vomiting, abdominal pain, makes swallowing difficult, and impairs vision. One of the reasons is improperly prepared canned mushrooms. The toxin is produced in the soil, so poorly washed mushrooms cause the development of bacteria.

Several mechanisms of neurotoxin poisoning are known. The most common is the accidental penetration of bacterial spores into the human body through the gastrointestinal tract. Spores are often found in foods that are packaged without access to air. Botulism occurs after eating contaminated and improperly stored canned food. Sausage poison can occur in meat and semi-finished products if they are not stored correctly, especially in the summer.

Botulism can affect the body as a result of consuming canned mushrooms, which are usually not suspicious in terms of appearance, smell or taste. In cans affected by botulism bacteria, gas is released, which causes so-called bombing, that is, visible swelling of the upper and lower parts of the can, and is manifested by hissing gas when trying to open the can.

For symptoms of poisoning to appear, only 0.001 mcg/kg of body weight is affected by botulinum toxin. The lethal dose for a man weighing 70 kg is 70 mcg in terms of pure toxin. Clinical symptoms usually appear within 12 hours, but this time can range from 2 hours to 14 days:

nausea, vomiting and diarrhea;
visual impairment - blurred vision or diplopia;
symmetrical paralysis or damage to the cranial nerves, prolapse of the lower jaw, difficulty swallowing and slurred speech;
descending flaccid paresis of the limbs with damage to the muscles of the chest and diaphragm, which leads to respiratory failure;
dryness of the mucous membranes of the oral cavity and pharynx;
conjunctival hyperemia;
pastoral hypotension;
decreased blood pressure;
urinary disorders.