Red cabbage is very often used in the preparation of fresh salads, because it has a bright color and distinct taste. In a professional kitchen, such a vegetable helps to give a peculiar shade to boiled rice. As for the preparations for the winter of red cabbage, it is well established itself in simple storage methods. In this article we will look at how to pickle red cabbage for the winter, analyze the main recipes.
Features selection of cabbage for storage
Choosing a vegetable for storage needs to be very careful. Himself head should be weighing from 1 kg or more, high density. If you press on it, it should not be subjected to deformation. The leaves of the product should be a bright purple hue.
In the case when it is planned to pickle home-grown, rather than purchased red cabbage, it is very important to follow the recommendations on the time and method of harvesting. 
Products that will be stored should be removed approximately in early Octoberbut surely before the constant chills come. When harvesting, on the head of cabbage you need to leave 2-3 covering sheets, which will protect the product from mechanical damage and diseases.
Cut vegetables need a sharp knife, while leaving the stalk to 2 cm in length. Cleaning should be done only in dry weather. If this was not possible, you must dry the cabbages well.
Important! Vegetables with a heading tight and without cracks are best kept in storage.
If you clean the blue cabbage ahead of time, it will fade. If you collect it later, or let it freeze, the heads will burst. In the case when the crop for some reason, still froze through, he needs to give completely thawed and then dried.
Fresh Preservation
It is quite possible to keep such a vegetable fresh, but it should be understood that the period of such storage will not exceed 2-3 months. 
In the cellar
The cellar is the most common place for storing red cabbage. As a variation, a cool pantry or cellar will do. Need room cook in advancestill in the summer.
The cellar must be well ventilated and disinfected there. For this, the room is whitened with quicklime and fumigated with sulfur.
The vegetables themselves should be stored on shelves, in boxes or suspended. The ideal conditions for storing vegetables in the cellar will be the temperature regime in the range from -1 ° C to + 1 ° C, humidity - 90-98%
Important! At temperatures above + 4 ° C, cabbages will sprout and crack.
In order to prolong the freshness of the product, you can powder it with chalk, pre-dry the top protective leaves. The most interesting option is considered clay mask.
The essence of the method lies in the fact that the head, cleaned previously from the top of the green foliage, is smeared with a clay solution. This should be done in such a way that the head itself under the clay is not translucent.
After that, the product is suspended on the street and left until the clay mask is completely dry. Then you can send vegetables to the cellar, they will be stored perfectly.
Learn the best recipes for winter preparations of rhubarb, green and regular garlic, pepper, zucchini, asparagus beans, physalis, pumpkin, squash, parsnip, white mushrooms, butter, horseradish, greens (cilantro, dill, parsley).
In a refrigerator
You can store the product in the refrigerator. This method is the easiest. Each vegetable head needs to be put in plastic bag and send to storage.
It is important that the package is not tied. You can also wrap the heads with a paper napkin first, and only after that put them in a bag. This method is also good. But even here the package can not be tied so that the vegetable does not start to rot. 
Pickling
For red cabbage there are many marinating recipes for the winter. This is not surprising, because with this method of storage this vegetable retains almost all of its beneficial properties, especially for vitamin C, which is a considerable amount in this product. Marinated cabbage is juicy, crispy and will suit almost all vegetable lovers.
As an example, we give the most simple and fast for pickled red cabbage recipe for winter.
To begin with, the vegetable should be finely chopped and very tightly packed in a jar of 3 liters. Then boil water (3 cups), vinegar (500 ml), add 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1.5 tablespoons of salt and other spices for marinade (black pepper in peas - 15-18 pcs., Laurel - 3 pcs., Cloves - 3 pcs, cinnamon stick.) 
This hot marinade will just fill in the cabbage in a can and in a few days the product will be ready for use.
Did you know? Brunettes can use red cabbage juice as a nourishing mask for their hair. It is applied literally for 15-20 minutes, then washed off with plain water. Girls with blond hair to conduct such experiments are not recommended, because the juice of this vegetable can give the hair a bluish tint.
Salads
Many housewives love to cook red cabbage salad for the winter. This method is suitable for those who plan to store vegetables for a longer time. A nice bonus is that by opening such conservation, you can immediately get practical ready meal, which can be served at the table.
Here is one of the most popular blue vegetable salad recipes. It will take 1 kg of red cabbage, 0.3 kg of Bulgarian pepper, onions (approximately 2-3 pieces, depending on size), vegetable oil, vinegar, cloves, bay pepper, pepper, sugar and salt. 
- The first is chopped blue head and chopped strips of pepper. Then the semirings should be cut onions. All these vegetables need salt (1 tablespoon. Salt will be enough), add 2 tablespoons to them. l vinegar and let stand 10 minutes.
- While vegetables are infused, you can do marinade. To make it, 200-250 ml of water should be boiled, put peppercorns (5-6 whole peas), bayberry, 2 cloves of buds, 1 tsp in it. Sahara. All this must be thoroughly mixed and boiled for 5 minutes, then pour 2 tbsp. l vinegar.
- Separately, you need to heat 8 tablespoons of vegetable oil to a temperature of about 70 ° C.
- Cabbage, Bulgarian pepper and chopped onion to put in jars, then pour them ready marinade. At the end, heated vegetable oil is added to each jar.
- Banks left to cover, sterilize, roll up and cool completely.
Did you know? A mixture of natural honey and red-vegetable juice can liquefy sputum, which accumulates in the lungs. In connection with this feature, the ancient Romans used cabbage for the treatment of colds, as well as a preventive measure against tuberculosis.
Sauerkraut
Fermented products are prepared very simply and quickly. 
The heads of the red vegetable should be cleaned from the upper foliage, the cabbages themselves should be thoroughly washed, cut into convenient pieces and finely chopped. After this, the cabbage is ground with salt and laid out in a pan or jar. It is very important to tamp it into the container as tightly as possible, while still need to press it with your hands so that the juice is formed.
At the bottom of the dishes should be put washed grape leaves. They should also cover the product from above. Additionally, layers can be shifted with unripe berries, sweet peppers (without seeds and peduncles), cut into slices of apples. This addition will give the dish a special taste.
Above you need to put the load. It can be a wooden plate, a plate or a stone. It is very important that the juice covers the whole cabbage. In case it is formed too little, it is allowed to add a small amount of cold, addicted water to the vegetable. Ready cabbage must first stand warmthen moves to a cooler place. Just a week later it can be consumed.
We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the variety of recipes for harvesting fruits and berries for the winter: apples, pears, apricots, sea buckthorn, cherries, blueberries, white currants, gooseberries, yosht, chokeberry, hawthorn, sunberry, cornel.
Pickling
For salting red vegetables will need: 10 kg of red cabbage, 10 sheets of laurel, a glass of salt, pepper (10 peas each), clove buds (10 pcs.), Cinnamon in powder form (to taste).
For the marinade you need to prepare vinegar (3 tablespoons), salt (1 tablespoon without a slide), sugar (2-3 tablespoons).
First of all, the banks must be thoroughly cleaned, sterilized and dried. Cabbage shred, poured into a large container. To it you need to add salt and manually thoroughly grind. All this should be left for a few hours so that the products give the juice.
In the meantime, you can do marinade. Salt, sugar and vinegar are mixed until the ingredients are fully combined.
Ready salting need to tamp in banks, while monitoring the uniform distribution of juice. Additionally, the marinade is poured into each container in equal parts. The cans are then closed with tin lids and sent to the cold. After about two weeks the cabbage is ready for serving. 
As you can see, there are many ways to store red cabbage. It will be enough to choose the one that suits best or prepare a vegetable in several variants in order to please yourself and loved ones with a useful and tasty dish in winter.
