The advantage of recipes for harvesting vegetables without sterilization is the simplicity of this method and significant time savings. A cucumber salad prepared in this way for the winter perfectly retains the shape and natural color of the fruits, and has excellent taste. This vegetable preparation is served to the table as a spicy cold snack or as an original side dish for main courses.
The demand for cucumber salad recipes for the winter is easy to explain:
- both very young and overripe fruits are suitable for conservation, for which it is usually difficult to find use;
- by combining spices, various additives and herbs, based on one recipe, you can get salads that are completely different in taste;
- the thermal effect on vegetables is minimized, so that the cucumbers remain crispy and firm.
Basic recipe for cucumber salad for the winter
The classic recipe, on the basis of which many of its variations subsequently appeared, implies conservation without sterilization, with further storage of the blanks on the lower shelves of the refrigerator or in cool cellars. For the salad you will need:
- 3, 5-5 kg of cucumbers;
- 1-2 large heads of garlic;
- herbs traditional for winter harvesting: umbrellas and dill twigs, parsley;
- 4 tbsp. l. coarse salt (you can take rock salt);
- 200 g sugar;
- 1 tbsp. 9% table vinegar or apple cider vinegar;
- 100 ml of good vegetable oil;
- a few peas of Jamaican pepper.
All the preparation of the ingredients boils down to the fact that the cucumbers are thoroughly washed from the ground and soaked in very cold, and preferably in ice water for several hours: this will allow them to remain crispy for a long time. However, if young, medium-sized fruits that have just been removed from the garden are prepared for conservation, then the procedure for keeping them in water can be disregarded.
Large cucumbers are cut into rings, small cucumbers are either preserved whole or cut into quarters, which speeds up the marinade soaking process. The prepared fruits are placed in a convenient saucepan or small basin, all the bulk and liquid components necessary for the recipe are added, mixed and taken out for a while in a cool time. The duration of this period depends on how quickly the cucumbers can provide enough juice for canning.
While the cucumbers are soaked in fragrant filling, you can take time to prepare the dishes: glass jars are washed from dirt with soda or table mustard, sterilized in any convenient way, after which pepper, fresh herbs and cloves of garlic are placed on the bottom of each container.
Cucumber salad is carefully laid out in jars and the remaining marinade is poured into them. It may happen that at the initial stage the cucumbers released little juice and the marinade pouring was not enough to cover all the layers of the salad, in which case the missing volume can be supplemented with vegetable oil, which will protect the workpiece from mold.
Cucumber salad for the winter with hot marinade
A variation of the classic version of cucumber salad is also prepared without sterilization, but implies a slightly modified composition of the original components:
- about 3-3.5 kg of fresh cucumbers;
- 3-4 large heads of onions (sweet onions can be used);
- 40 g sugar;
- 40 g of common salt or 30 g of tbsp. l. coarse salt;
- half a glass of table vinegar;
- dill, Jamaican peppercorns, bay leaf.
As in the classic recipe, the cucumbers are washed, cut in any convenient way, mixed with onions, chopped into rings, and the vegetable mixture is left to infuse for as long as necessary for abundant juice release.
The container with vegetables is heated over very low heat, all the remaining necessary ingredients are gently mixed in and the future salad is slowly brought to a boil. When the cucumbers turn dark green, the workpiece is removed from the stove, laid out in pre-boiled jars, poured in hot juice with spices and closed with metal or screw caps.
When preparing cucumber salad for the winter using the hot pouring method, it is recommended to taste the marinade so as not to make a mistake in calculating the amount of salt: the pouring should be a little saltier than necessary - the excess salt will be taken away by the cucumbers when they are infused after closing the jars. The recipe also allows the use of other spicy herbs: for example, instead of the usual dill inflorescences, you can put a little basil, thyme, rosemary in the jars.
Spicy cucumber salad for the winter
This method of harvesting is notable for the fact that not only young, but also overripe cucumber fruits are suitable for salad. To prepare a savory vegetable snack, you will need the following ingredients:
- 4 kg of cucumbers of any ripeness;
- 200 ml of regular or natural apple cider vinegar;
- 180-200 g sugar;
- 200 ml of deodorized vegetable oil;
- 20-25 g of powdered mustard;
- 15 g freshly ground pepper;
- 70 g coarse salt;
- 2 large heads of garlic;
- a bunch of fresh parsley.
For the convenience of further packing, cucumbers are cut into rings or half rings (in the event that the fruits are very large); add fresh herbs, cloves of garlic and all the other ingredients included in the recipe to them. If overripe cucumbers are used for the salad, then it is advisable to first peel them from the coarse peel and remove the seeds if the grains have already become tough. It is convenient to cut such fruits not into rings, but into oblong bars.
The vegetable mixture is insisted for 2-3 hours, until a large amount of juice appears, then the workpiece is placed on low heat, the mixture is boiled, and then it is simmered until the cucumbers darken. The salad is packed in jars, topped up with a spicy hot marinade and covered with lids.
Simplified hot snack recipe
In another version of this recipe, winter harvesting from overripe cucumbers does not require cooking on fire: peeled fruits are cut into portioned slices; placed in a container with an enamel coating and poured with spicy marinade. To prepare such a filling, it is necessary to boil a liter of filtered soft water, add 200 g of sugar, 20 g of table salt, 5 g of citric acid to it and, to taste, a laurel leaf, Jamaican pepper grains, and cloves.
For half an hour, the cucumbers are kept under oppression in a hot filling, then they are laid out in jars, a quarter of a teaspoon of citric acid is added to each of them and poured again with boiled marinade. Such a cucumber salad for the winter has a very soft and delicate taste, because does not use vinegar as a traditional preservative.
