Is there a "cauliflower glut" in your vegetable garden? When many of the pretty heads ripen at the same time, the vegetables need to be stored properly to avoid spoilage. In this way, you can transform the tender cabbage into tasty dishes well beyond the harvest season.

Cauliflower only lasts a few days in the refrigerator

Four ways to store cauliflower

Depending on when you want to process the cauliflower and what you want to cook with it, you have different options for storing cauliflower. If the cauliflower can no longer stay on the bed - where it stays fresh and crisp for a very long time - you have the following four options for storing the vegetables:

  • keep the cabbage in the fridge
  • store the cauliflower heads hanging in a cool cellar
  • Freeze cut cauliflower
  • Put in the cauliflower florets and boil down

Store cauliflower in the refrigerator

If you want to use the cauliflower over the next few days, you can safely store it in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator. To do this, cut the stalk straight off and remove the green cabbage leaves. The fresh, crunchy cauliflower is even a treat raw in a salad.

Store cauliflower in the pantry

Do you have a cool pantry? Here you can store the freshly harvested cauliflower hanging for about a month. For this it is necessary that you pull the root of the cabbage head out of the ground when harvesting. Then remove the lower leaves and attach a string to the base of the root. Now hang the cauliflower heads upside down in a suitable place in the storage cellar.

Store cauliflower in the freezer

Cauliflower can be kept frozen for several months. For the longest possible shelf life, you should blanch the cauliflower florets before freezing; however, it is also possible to freeze the raw cauliflower. To do this, cut the cabbage into wedges or florets, remove any greens and wash the vegetables thoroughly. Freezer bags are just as suitable for freezing cauliflower as plastic boxes.
Once thawed, the veggies will have a soft texture, but that doesn't matter if you plan to cook the cauliflower.

Store cauliflower in jars

Cauliflower can be kept in jars for up to a year, depending on how it is prepared. The two most popular variants are boiling in salt stock and pickling in vinegar. The cauliflower is cleaned, divided into florets and blanched. Then put it in sterile preserving jars together with some spices and pour either the broth or a vinegar mixture over it. The cauliflower pickled in brine will keep for a particularly long time if it is boiled for about an hour.

The garden journal freshness ABC

How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?

The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:

  • as a free PDF file to print out yourself

Category:

Vegetable garden