How to preserve and properly store vegetables without canning

Author | October 10, 2024 | Food Consciousness, Vegan Recipes | No Comments

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Learn how you can reserve and store your vegetables

Autumn is here, and the cold season is coming. Now is the ideal time to think about how to store and preserve local vegetables because who doesn’t want to be able to enjoy fresh vegetables in autumn and winter? How can you store and keep fresh vegetables from the garden or farmers market, perfect for the cold season?

Proper storage of vegetables

Did you know that you can enjoy pumpkin, potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, and root vegetables such as radishes, carrots, beetroot, salsify, parsnips, or even celeriac several months after harvest time, without having to pickle, preserve or freeze them?

You only need a dark, cool room with high humidity to keep vegetables fresh longer. Most houses and apartments have such a room as an ideal autumn and winter place for storing potatoes, pumpkins, etc., to ensure they remain fresh. This way, the vegetables stay fresh for longer and retain all the essential nutrients, which can protect the body from colds, especially in the coming cold season.

Vegetables stay fresh longer through preservation.

There are many ways to keep your vegetables fresh longer and save them. For example, drying would be an excellent way to preserve if you have too many tomatoes and cannot use them quickly.

Drying

You can dry any vegetable.

You can rely on natural sunlight and use a conventional oven or dehydrator for drying. Unpeeled dried vegetables contain many more essential ingredients than peeled vegetables. Dried vegetables can be used as a snack for salads, soups, spice mixes, or pestos and liven up any dish simply and healthily.

You can process vegetables into soup seasoning. The dried vegetables are chopped and stored in a sealable container with spices and herbs. This variant is also ideal for leftovers from cooking. You can chop up a piece of carrot, garlic, onion, or celery and dry it, and you have reduced food waste, saved money, and created a natural alternative to store-bought soup cubes.

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Freezing

Preserving food in suitable freezer bags or boxes is a very popular form of preservation. You can use it to preserve raw or pre-cooked vegetables. Have you prepared too much sauce? Simply portion the cooked dish, seal it well, and preserve it in the freezer. Perfect if you are short on time or frustrated with cooking. Just take it out of the freezer, warm it up briefly, and have a delicious dish on your plate after a few minutes.

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Pickling

An ancient tradition is picking food in vinegar, oil, or alcohol. Herb or white wine vinegar is ideal for pickling, giving the vegetables an incredible aroma while retaining valuable vitamins and minerals.

You need Jars with lids, salt, vinegar, and oil for pickling.

Vegetables for pickling:

First, clean the jars. To do this, boil the jars with water and vinegar.

To remove the water from the vegetables, sprinkle them with salt for several hours before pickling.

The whole or chopped-up vegetables can now be packed in the jars in their raw state and poured over with vinegar. The vegetables must be completely covered with the vinegar! Close the lid and store for several months.

Instead of vinegar, you can use oil to keep the vegetables fresh for several months.

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Fermentation

The oldest way (used as early as 2000 BC) to keep vegetables from spoiling is fermentation. One of the best-known fermented products is sauerkraut. Still, you can preserve not just cabbage using lactic acid bacteria because, basically, any vegetable is suitable for fermentation.

You only need the vegetables, some salt, and water to start fermenting vegetables. The lactic acid bacteria that ensure longer shelf life in the jar are already in the vegetables. Another plus point is the preservation of vital substances, which are even increased by fermentation.

For fermentation, you need:

Usual jars or special fermentation jars with weights

Regular jars need additional weight, like a small cup, a plate, or a stone.

Water, 20g salt per 1kg of vegetables. Vegetables for fermentation

First, you should clean the jars thoroughly. Boil the jars briefly in a pot with water and vinegar. Also, add the additional weights to the pot to kill all germs.

Chop the vegetables, put them in a bowl with some salt, and knead thoroughly. During this process, the salt draws water from the vegetables containing the lactic acid bacteria needed for fermentation. Vegetables that contain hardly any liquid must be covered with additional water.

Fill the vegetables into jars, press them under their juice, or cover them with water. You can use a small cup, a stone, or special weights to weigh the vegetables down so that they always remain covered with liquid. Place them over the vegetables and close them with the jar lid.

The vegetables are now left for seven days at room temperature in a place protected from the sun. After that, they can be eaten or stored in the fridge.

The fermentation slows down as soon as the vegetables are in the fridge.

All vegetables are suitable for fermentation. Soft vegetables such as tomatoes, zucchini, or peppers become soft more quickly and often mushy, ideal for sauces. With this preservation variant, there is no specific time at which the vegetables are “ready.” The time can vary depending on the type of vegetable, preference, and taste. You can experiment.