The benefits and special taste of celery have long been known to people. It contains many vitamins and nutrients that strengthen the immune system and help with neurological diseases. In cooking, this plant is used quite widely as a spice for meat, poultry, vegetables, soups and sauces.

Since this useful product cannot be found in winter, housewives have adapted to making preparations for the winter from it. Moreover, they use both leaves and roots. Below we offer several recipes with which you can diversify your winter menu. When making home canned food, be aware of storage conditions and be careful when preparing them.

Canned celery

• celery stalks – 1 bunch
• garlic – 1 head
• vinegar - 1 table. spoon
• granulated sugar - 2 tables. spoons
• bay leaf – 3 pcs.
• water – 2 l.
• salt – 2 tbsp. spoons

Cook the salted brine, cut the celery stalks into small pieces. Place garlic cloves and bay leaves at the bottom of the jar, and place celery on top. Pour vinegar mixed with sugar on top, sterilize and roll into jars.

Celery in tomato sauce

What you will need:

• tomatoes – 2 kg
• celery stalks – 1 kg
• sunflower oil – 30 ml
• vinegar - 1 tbsp. spoon
• salt - to taste 2 teaspoons
• chili pepper – 1 pc.
• granulated sugar - 2 tbsp. spoons

Pass the tomatoes through a meat grinder and cook the resulting puree for 60 minutes. After this time, add chopped chili pepper, vegetable oil, salt and granulated sugar. After 15-20 minutes, add the chopped celery stalks and boil for almost another half hour. Then add vinegar and cook for a couple more minutes, then roll into sterile jars.

Herbs for seasoning

Take:

We cut all the greens into small pieces with a knife, mix with salt and place in prepared jars.

Celery soup mix

Required ingredients:

• onion – 1 kg
• carrots – 1 kg
• sweet pepper – 300 g
• celery – 1 bunch
• tomatoes – 1 kg
• parsley and dill - one small bunch each
• salt – 1 tbsp. spoon

Prepare the vegetables: grate the carrots, chop the peppers and onions, chop the tomatoes, celery and parsley. Add salt to the mixture, mix, put in jars.

Pickled celery roots

Components:

• celery root – 1 pc.
• water – 700 ml
• cloves – 4-5 pcs.
• allspice -4-5 pcs.
• salt – 1 teaspoon
• citric acid – 2 g

Cut the peeled and washed celery root into cubes. Boil for 2 minutes in water with salt and citric acid. Roll into jars, adding pepper and cloves.

The green parts and rhizomes of celery are rich in vitamin complex and have many beneficial properties. It’s good to eat it every day, but you can’t always find it on the shelves.

In winter, this is an indispensable product that can enrich the human body with useful elements. Therefore, knowledge and skills on how to store celery are important.

How can rhizomes be stored?

Green vegetables can be grown in the garden or at the dacha. The rules for winter storage at home are simple; celery is prepared in different forms. Frozen or dried herbs are added to the soup for a special aroma, frozen rhizomes are grated and seasoned in various dishes, pickled tomatoes with celery are piquant. The culture can be eaten on its own.

The storage of fresh petioles, leaves and roots of the plant is quite long. The products can be used in salads and as a bright decoration for any prepared dish.

Harvesting involves cutting off the leaves, leaving the small petioles behind. Suitable months would be July and August. Purchased raw materials must be checked for the smoothness of the skin, which should not have any unevenness or knots, otherwise the product will be inconvenient to clean. Leaves and stems should not be yellowed or spotted.

Tip: If you knock on the root and the tone of the sound is ringing, this means there are voids inside. You can check the root vegetable to make sure it is not rotten by pressing on the top of the root. Softness and slipperiness indicate a low-quality product.

If the rhizomes do not need long-term storage, they are wrapped tightly with cling film and placed in a special compartment of the refrigerator. The tartness of aroma, spiciness and benefits of celery will be relevant for a week. Foil or a food container will extend the shelf life. Placed on paper towels, the green parts of the plant will keep in the refrigerator compartment for vegetables for 3 weeks.

There are several methods for storing celery root for a long time. You can pour sand into a large container, for example a box, place celery in it with the petioles facing out, and store it underground.

You can put the roots in plastic bags, or leave them folded in wooden boxes, the walls of which do not have cracks. Take sand and sprinkle it on the products in a two-centimeter layer. Store in a special room with approximately ninety percent air humidity and a temperature no higher than one positive degree.

Another method begins by preparing the clay mixture to create a consistency similar to sour cream. The roots are taken individually and dipped in clay. Once dried, they are placed in stacks in a vegetable store or cellar.

You can store root celery in piles with the petioles facing out. It is necessary that all layers are poured. For this, soil or sand mixed with chalk is suitable, then fungal diseases will not be harmful to the product.

Before storing dried celery root, peel the skin, cut it into strips, and dry it in a sunny place. The products are placed in a glass container and closed.

It is good to store celery for the winter in the freezer. Root vegetables will need to be cleaned. Take a large grater and grate the celery root on it. The products are placed in bags and stored in the freezer for up to a year. Celery can be added to dishes frozen; defrosting is not required.

Storing petiole and leaf celery

You can buy celery in bunches at markets and supermarkets. The choice should be made on bright, juicy and brittle greens. The elasticity of the stems serves as an indicator that the plant is stale and will be of less benefit. The petioles should be without the seed shoot, as it imparts a bitter taste to the stems.

The celery “green stuff” needs to be either quickly eaten, or, before it gets stale and wilt, processed and stored. Having bought or cut celery from the garden, you need to rinse it in cool water and dry it a little. Aluminum foil is suitable for storage wrapping. Wrapped greens will keep in the refrigerator for about a week and a half. The leaves and stems of the plant can be preserved in plastic bags for only 3 days, after which they will wilt.

Leaf and stalk celery is an excellent seasoning. In order to prepare it, take large-sized paper, lay out the green parts of the plant there, and cover them with a second piece of paper on top. The grass is dried for a month. In order to be stored for a long time, dried products are transferred to paper bags, used as needed throughout the year.

To preserve green and aromatic celery, it is frozen. To do this, it is better to use ice molds. Yellowed branches are removed, fresh products are crushed, placed in molds, water is poured on top, and the products are placed in the freezer.

As an addition to main courses, green parts of celery are stored in a plastic, airtight container placed in the freezer.

If the question arises of how to store stalked celery so that you can use it whenever you want, cooks recommend turning to the salting method. If you take half a kilo of petioles, 100 grams of salt is enough, it should not have additives, iodized salt will not work.

You can also add green leaves of the crop. Finely chopped parts of the plant are minced in a meat grinder, placed in jars, sprinkled with salt. The glass container in which the salted greens are located must be sealed and kept cool. The preparation is infused for 2 days. Thanks to salt, celery will not rot or spoil.

Leaf and petiole products can be stored fresh until the spring months. Each celery bush is dug out with soil. Plants with soil should be left in the cellar or basement, buried in the sand.

If there is no cellar space, you need to cut off the rhizomes of the crop, rinse the celery in cold water, dry it, put it in a plastic bag and leave it in the refrigerator. If the temperature in it is maintained at “0” or “plus 1”, the green preparation can be consumed in the spring.

If celery is going to be stored, the green parts of the plant are cut off before it blooms.

For enhanced flavor and greater tenderness of petiole celery, it is recommended to wrap the plants with light-proof material 30 days before harvest.

The indoor method for preserving fresh celery involves trimming the root and keeping the stem in a jar filled with water for about 7 days outside the refrigerator. The water should be changed and the stem trimmed every day.

Of the many ways to properly store celery, each housewife chooses a technique depending on her goals, capabilities and preferences.

– biennial plant of the Umbelliferae class. It is often used in the preparation of various dishes: first, second, desserts. Celery can be grown on your own plot, since the plant is accustomed to any climate and is frost-resistant.

When to harvest for storage

Celery is harvested in late autumn; it easily tolerates frost, so there is no need to rush into harvesting. Harvesting root celery is done using a fork so as not to damage the roots. The plant is dug up and pulled by the tops. Most often, the foliage is cut off at the roots and left on the site as fertilizer for the next season. Petiole celery is harvested in mid-autumn, when it has the most juice and nutrients.

Did you know? In Homer's two most famous works, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the author mentions celery. In the Iliad, Myrmidon horses grazed in fields of cornflowers and celery, and in the Odyssey, wild celery grew around Calypso's cave.

Harvesting celery for the winter

The stems and roots of celery are rich in useful microelements; in winter they are a more than useful product. The shelf life of celery when properly stored is one year.

How to Preserve Celery Root

If you have a cellar or basement, celery roots can be stored in boxes with peat or wet sand. At home, the roots are washed from the ground, dried and packaged in bags or cling film. You can store the prepared product in the refrigerator in the vegetable compartment.

Important!It is undesirable to store celery root in the freezer, it loses its properties, such a product will only be suitable after heat treatment.

How to Preserve Celery Leaves

To store petiole celery, cut petioles are washed, sorted and dried from moisture. Then you can put it in a bag and store it in the refrigerator on a shelf. For better storage, you need to make a couple of holes in the bag for ventilation. The petioles can be stored until the beginning of spring at a temperature no higher than one degree Celsius. If it is possible to store it in the basement, dig it up with the roots and store it in a box with damp sand.

How to properly dry celery

You can make blanks from leaf celery for the winter. Drying is considered the simplest method. It is easier to dry in bunches, not in direct sun, in a cool room. You can lay it out on a flat surface and dry it by covering it with a sheet of parchment. The process lasts about a month. The finished product can be ground into powder and used as a spice, maybe a little bigger. In any case, such products should be stored in glass containers with a tight-fitting lid. It is advisable to place it in a dark and dry place.

You can dry celery root in the same way. Cut it into shapes convenient for you (cubes, rings, strips), dry well. Store in glass containers in a dark, dry place. Such preparations are convenient to use in both first and second courses, and in sauces.

Freezing celery for the winter

The easiest way to keep celery fresh for the winter without having a cellar is to freeze it. Sort and wash the celery leaves and dry them on a paper towel. Chop the leaves with a sharp knife, fill the ice compartments with herbs, add a little clean water - and into the freezer. When the cubes are frozen, transfer them to a bag and leave them in the freezer.

How to freeze stalked celery - the same way as leaf celery. Prepared petioles can be stored whole in a bag, they can be chopped and placed in a plastic container, sending it to the freezer.

Attention!Celery is a very healthy product, but there are limitations. Too frequent use is undesirable for pregnant women; the active substances of the plant increase the tone of the uterus, which can provoke termination of pregnancy.

Salted celery

Salted celery can be stored for a long time and used in almost all dishes. For pickling you will need a kilogram of washed and chopped leaves, 250 grams of salt. The ingredients are mixed and placed in jars in such a way as to leave some space for the juice. As soon as the juice comes out, the jars are sealed with lids and stored in the pantry or cellar.

Pickling celery for the winter

Pickled celery can be consumed as an independent snack and as an addition to hot dishes.

For preparation you will need: 1 kg celery root, 1 liter of water, 1 tbsp. l. salt, 3 grams of citric acid. For the marinade: 800 ml water, 200 ml vinegar, 4 peppercorns and cloves.

The roots are crushed into cubes or half rings and blanched for several minutes in salted water. Then they are taken out of the water and placed in jars. While the celery is cooling, cook the marinade. Pour the hot marinade into the contents of the jars, pasteurize for 20 minutes, and roll up the lids.

Leaf celery also has its own recipe for pickling for the winter.

For a liter jar you will need: 4 cloves garlic, a couple of bay leaves. For the marinade: 700 ml water, 150 ml vinegar, 70 grams salt, 100 grams sugar.

Garlic and bay are placed on the bottom, tightly chopped celery leaves are placed on top, and hot marinade is poured over. The jars and contents are sterilized for 20 minutes and closed with lids.

Celery Canning Recipes

Recipe No. 1

• celery root - 100 grams
• celery greens - 100 grams
• parsley - 100 grams
• leek - 100 grams (white stem)
• salt - 100 grams

Cut the celery roots into thin strips, celery and parsley into large pieces 1.5 cm long, leeks into rings. Place the ingredients in a bowl, add salt, mix. Then place tightly in jars and leave to release the juice. Cover with airtight lids and store in a cool place.

Recipe No. 2. Petiole celery prepared in marinade for the winter.

If you eat celery, you've probably noticed that it tastes different in winter. You can avoid disappointment in your dishes if you know how to store leaf celery.

The beneficial properties of this plant have been known since ancient times. Since its appearance, several varieties have been distinguished:

• sheet;
• petiole;
• root.

Vegetarians and adherents of a healthy diet often consume stalked celery. Its stems are eaten raw, after being washed under running water. By combining it with other healthy products, you can get not just a smoothie, but a storehouse of vitamins. The root vegetable or simply the root is found as a side dish, boiled or stewed, as one of the iconic ingredients of a salad or soup. It is used to make purees, mousses and stews. Finally, dried leaf celery is almost indispensable; its use infuses the dish with bright colors and spicy notes.

Dried celery is found as a seasoning. Winter is always accompanied by a deficiency of vitamins in the body. In order for the products to be exclusively beneficial, you need to figure out how to properly prepare celery, in particular leaf celery, for the winter, preserving its natural benefits. It is inappropriate to talk about excellent preservation of taste, because not a single processed vegetable can compare with fresh. But you can reduce losses to a minimum.

Harvesting begins at the end of July or at the beginning of August, when the crop is ripe, but not yet blooming. This is one of the main rules, because in this way the highest concentration of compounds is contained in the stems and leaves. If the plant has already bloomed, then a lot of effort will go into developing the seeds, and as a result the vegetable will be tasteless.

Of course, in modern markets you can find anything, anytime. But using common sense, you can come to the conclusion that a vegetable or fruit grown in unnatural conditions, under a lamp instead of sunlight, and fed with additives will not bring any benefit.

Harvesting leaf celery for the winter is not so difficult. If it grows in your garden bed, then it would be foolish to buy it at the store. Dried celery root will reveal itself much better in a dish than fresh store-bought one out of season.

Basic storage methods

There are several options for storing the product at home. The most common are:

• drying;
• freezing

The technology of each type involves saving vegetables for a certain period. The simplest methods make it possible to store greens for three weeks, provided that the requirements are met. Long-term storage requires special conditions, temperature conditions and the preparation process.

The leafy part of celery quickly withers. To make using a dried or frozen product as pleasant as possible, process it quickly. Leaves should be trimmed and washed as quickly as possible. Then dry on a paper towel. After drying, it is recommended to wrap the raw material in foil. Do not replace foil with polyethylene or plastic. These substances act as catalysts for wilting.

There is an interesting option to preserve leaf celery for the winter, even fresh. To do this, you will need a specially designated place in the cellar, covered with sand. During harvesting, you need to dig up the bushes with roots, move them to the basement and place them in the sand. If there is no cold room in the house, aluminum foil and a separate place in the refrigerator are enough.

Drying

This is one of the best ways to preserve the benefits of leaf celery and provide your family with vitamins throughout the winter. There are several methods for preparing dried celery. The first option is natural drying. The leafy part is knitted into bundles and hung in a spacious room where air circulates freely. The second involves the use of a lamp or other light source. Raw materials should not be exposed to sunlight. To do this, the laid out leaves are covered with parchment on top. In this way, you can protect them from the negative effects of the sun, and at the same time dry them well.

It is recommended to grind the finished product into powder using a blender, mortar or by hand. In a month, you will not only be able to dry the leaves, but also preserve their natural aroma and piquancy. Seasoning made from leaves and stems is also very popular. It can be stored in a bag or glass container.

Freezing

In many respects, freezing is inferior to drying. First of all, this is the amount of saved properties of the product. When frozen, heat treatment occurs, as a result of which most of the compounds are destroyed, leaving the most stable and no less necessary components for us.

To bring the fresh smell of your food back to summer even in winter, you can freeze the leaves in ice cube trays. Chopped celery is placed in a container and filled with a small amount of water. A type of dry freezing is also common. To do this, the leaves are sealed in a sealed bag or container. The product is stored in the freezer, in the vegetable compartment.

Video “Preparing celery for the winter”

From this video you will learn how to properly prepare celery for the winter.