Raisins are very popular dry fruit which is sweet and tangy in taste and is used to add in various kinds of desserts, cakes, small waffles and drinks. they are low in calories and packed with lot of healthy nutrients in them.
you can easily freeze them to increase the shelf life of the raisins although they still can go bad beyond expiry date and lose flavor. generally raisins packets and boxes comes with shelf life of 12 months but once you open the pack to consume it then shelf life drops to about 6-8 months due to moisture entry in container.
freezing raisins is good to keep them in good shape and right texture for long time, so if your freezer has some space left then keep the raisins packet in freezer and use when required without any issues.
Benefits of raisins
- It has been found that soaking few raisins at night in water and then drinking that water in morning and eating the soaked raisins one by one increases blood production in body, besides helping with digestion and making skin clear, do try it for few days to see the difference as you will start feeling energetic throughout the day once you you eat soaked raisins in morning.
- it helps to keep bones strong and provides iron to the body.
- 100 gram raisins provides about 300 calories of energy along with 28 mg of calcium and 2.6 grams of iron content in it.it also contains 30 mg magnesium, 75 mg Phosphorus, 825 mg potassium and many more useful nutrients which makes it one of the great dry fruit to have in your recipes and eat regularly.
- some studies have also found that raisins help to reduce type 2 diabetic risk in old age.
How to freeze raisins
put the raisins in small plastic container and make sure they don’t stick with each and then put in freezer. when you require it then open the container and take them out in required quantity and keep the rest back. if you have vacuum sealer bags then you can store raisins in them as well to keep in freezer.
to avoid sticking of raisins due to moisture in them, i would recommend you to take a parchment paper or baking sheet on a tray and spread all the raisins on then tray evenly so that all of them are separate and not sticking then let them freeze for 1 hour. doing this will make sure that moisture is gone from outer layer of your raisins
after that take raisins in small quantities and store them in small containers and zip lock bags to store in freezer separately so that when you require small quantities, it is readily available without worrying about defrosting whole big chunk of raisin every time. doing this will ensure raisins will also stay sticking free and wont form big blob of raisins when required for using in our tasty recipes.
Also when we freeze the raisins, it increases its shelf life for 6 months, making total shelf life of about 18 months.
Checkout: how to get rid of freezer burn
How to defrost frozen raisins
If you want to enjoy some raisins as snacks then just take the container out and keep it on your counter top for few hours and it would be ready to it or you can just transfer the container from freezer to fridge and the job of defrosting would be done over night or in few hours so that you can take out the raisins and enjoy cold raisins as snacks or in some dishes.
if you need to add raisins to some baked dishes like cakes, drinks, puddings etc. then you can add in freeze form only and it will become normal on its own due to the heat of the dish and make them taste good.
how to consume raisins
raisins can be consumed in many forms with many dishes. if you eat them without anything you will find them sweet and tangy depending upon the variety you choose to eat.
- you can add them to your vegetable stir fry recipe or in vegetable salad with veggies like corn, spinach, carrots, broccoli to give a sweet and savory taste to your salad.
- it can also be used in ice cream if you make home made ice cream with your ice cream makers in kitchen
- it can be added to pudding like rice pudding, bread pudding or in dessert shakes like chocolate shapes, dry fruit shakes, avocado shake and other fruit shakes.
- it can be used to garnish different cake top to give them good flavor and different look along with other dry fruits like on fruit cakes, chocolate cakes etc.
- you can add raisins to your morning breakfast cereal bowl to give a good flavor and enjoy raisins in breakfast.
- you can also make sweet and savory trail mix with roasted peanuts, raisins, roasted almonds, salt and pepper, roasted flattened rice and other different food items which you like to have great mix. it is very popular in west as people like to make and take trail mix to picnic and outings to enjoy with friends and family. kids love it too.
conclusion
Raisins seems to be a good alternative to some sweet candies so you can give to your kids also as it is healthy for body also. as we discussed freezing raisins increase its shelf so you can always keep some stock of raisins in your freezer and fridge to enjoy with kids when you need to eat something sweet and healthy or add to your dishes as garnish or in recipe.
do share it with your dry fruit lover friends as it would help them store the raisins property in their freezers for its longevity so they can also enjoy it whenever they want.
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