Can Purslane be frozen?

Purslane is a herbaceous plant that can be eaten raw or cooked. Its stems can be cooked like spinach, and its leaves are very soft and can be used to make soups and sauces, or stews. It has high nutritional value and is extremely delicious, making it a food suitable for all ages. So, can such a good food be frozen? Let’s take a look below.

Portulaca oleracea is an annual succulent herb with thick, juicy, hairless leaves and thick purple stems. It blooms in summer with small, slightly yellow flowers. It grows mostly in sunny places such as farm roadsides and vegetable garden ruins and is distributed throughout the country. It has extremely high medicinal value and has many functions such as clearing away heat and dampness, detoxifying and reducing swelling, anti-inflammatory and cough relieving, and diuresis and laxative. The leaves improve eyesight and can be used as high-quality veterinary medicine and pesticide. The young stems are edible.

Purslane has health benefits. It contains a large number of trace elements that can be absorbed by the human body. It has effects on the cardiovascular system, uterus, smooth muscles, etc. For such good and easy-to-dig medicinal and edible materials, preservation becomes the key. So how can we preserve purslane in high quality? In fact, Purslane can be kept safe by simply washing it and placing it in the refrigerator (never freeze it).

Another way is to dry it and then soak it in hot water when eating. This method is simple and direct, but it depends on the weather. The drying time must be planned well. Do not choose to dry the purslane in unpredictable weather. Make sure the sun is in the sky for the next few days. In this weather, after 4-7 days of drying, basically all the moisture in the purslane will evaporate.

However, before drying, it must be "killed". Experiments have shown that if Purslane is exposed to the sun for 2 months without being "dead", its leaves will remain green. This is unsuccessful. It is very simple to "kill" purslane. You just need to blanch it in salt water for a few minutes, take it out, drain the water, and place it in the sun.

There are two other methods of drying: put the washed purslane in a steamer and steam it until it changes color, then take it out and put it in the sun. This method may cause some of the original ingredients of purslane to be lost. Another common practice in Anhui is to wrap the purslane with a layer of wood ash and then dry it in the sun. This method may seem dirty, but it retains the highest quality ingredients of purslane.