Lecho: the best vegetable snack recipes and secrets of its preparation

Favorite snack

Lecho is the simplest vegetable snack you can think of. It usually contains only three vegetables - bell peppers, tomatoes and onions. There are no strict rules on how to prepare lecho, so every housewife has her own home recipe.

In France, ratatouille is prepared instead of lecho, although it also contains zucchini, eggplant and garlic. In Spain, the vegetable stew pisto is popular, and in Arab countries, the Turkish matbuha salad of baked sweet peppers with garlic is often served. In Bulgaria and other Balkan countries, lecho has a different name - ajvar, and this dish is more like caviar made from fried or baked peppers. By the way, pepper has been grown in Hungary since the 16th century, although it comes from America. However, in our country peppers are called Bulgarian due to the fact that at first they were brought from Bulgaria.

Classics of the genre

The lecho recipe is simple and easy; even a novice cook can handle this dish. Bell peppers should first be washed and peeled, and then chopped - finely or coarsely, it all depends on the preferences of the eater. The skins are removed from the tomatoes, after which the fruits are cut into slices, and the peeled onions are finely chopped. Vegetables are stewed in a saucepan with a little water added for 10 minutes, after which the lecho is transferred to sterilized jars. First, the vegetables are laid out, then they are poured with the sauce in which they were stewed. In this case, the vegetables should be lightly covered with liquid. Next, the jars are covered with clean lids and sterilized in a pan of boiling water. Sometimes carrots and garlic are added to the appetizer. In Hungary, this dish is prepared with smoked meat and sometimes topped with eggs, resulting in a hearty omelette.

By the way, if you have a little filling left, you can preserve it in a separate jar and use it for making soups.

Cooking eggplant lecho with tomato paste - a simple recipe with photos

Many people like to make preparations based on ready-made store-bought tomato paste. It turns out especially tasty if you use eggplants. This recipe, like the entire collection, will not contain carrots in the ingredients. But you simply can’t do without sweet bell peppers.

What you will need:

Eggplant - 6 pcs.
Sweet bell pepper - 6 pcs.
Garlic - 2 pcs.
Tomato paste - 2.5 l.
Chili pepper - 1 pc.
Vegetable oil - 250 gr.
Granulated sugar - 100 g.
Table vinegar 9% – 100 ml
Salt - 2 teaspoons.

It is better to purchase tomato paste of high quality, so that later your preparation for the winter does not disappoint.

How to cook

Wash the hot pepper, remove the seeds and cut into half rings.

Peel the garlic and grind it together with hot pepper in a blender.

Pour the tomato paste into a large saucepan, place on the stove and, after boiling, cook for about 10 minutes. Then put the mass of garlic and hot pepper here. Be sure to mix everything very well.

Wash the bell pepper, cut into two parts, peel and cut each half into three more. We will get a medium-sized long straw.

Wash the eggplant and remove the skin. Cut into squares. To get rid of bitterness, soak the pieces in salted water for a couple of hours, and then rinse in plain water.

Place peppers and eggplants in a saucepan with tomato paste. Add sugar, salt, vegetable oil and vinegar. Stir and cook over low heat after boiling for about 30 minutes.

Once fully prepared, place into sterile jars, roll up the lids and leave under a blanket for a day. Store in a cellar or pantry out of direct sunlight.

Secrets of making lecho

Let's talk about how to make lecho tasty. All vegetables must be ripe and juicy; this is the main condition for success. Ideally, of course, it would be good to remove the seeds and skins from tomatoes, but this is not a fundamentally important condition. It’s just that a snack without a hard peel will be more tender. It is easy to remove the skin by making cross-shaped cuts on the “butt”, then pour boiling water over the fruit and quickly remove the skin by pulling the corners. Some housewives immerse tomatoes in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then in cold water. After this, the skin can also be removed without any problems.

As for cutting, everything is individual. If you want to get a dish similar to vegetable stew, cut the vegetables into large or medium slices. If you prefer the consistency of caviar, then grind the tomatoes in a blender and finely chop the peppers. Peppers chopped into rings and long slices look very beautiful.

In principle, you can prepare lecho without tomatoes, replacing them with tomato paste. The proportions should be as follows: take 300 g of tomato paste per liter of water, and this mixture replaces 1.5 kg of tomatoes.

Spices and aromatic herbs will enhance the taste of the dish, but vinegar should be added only for winter preparations. If you are going to eat lecho in the next week, you don’t need any vinegar.

Classic lecho recipe

To prepare traditional lecho, you need to prepare the following components:

sweet bell pepper – 3 kilograms;
ripe fleshy tomatoes - 2 kilograms;
granulated sugar – 100 grams;
table salt – 2 tablespoons;
table vinegar 9% - 2 tablespoons;
sunflower oil – 100 ml.

Preparation of lecho begins with the preparation of vegetables. First of all, wash the bell pepper. It must be cut and all seeds and stalks removed. Then the vegetable is cut into large slices.

How to sterilize jars

This point is very important when you are preparing for the winter. If the glass containers are well disinfected, the lecho will not spoil and will be stored for a long time, although you will still eat it before spring - it is very tasty!

Wash the glass jars well with baking soda and dry with a clean towel. Fill them with water to 1 cm and put them in the microwave for 5 minutes, setting the power to 800 W. When the water boils, the jars are sterilized with steam. But the lids will have to be boiled separately.

You can sterilize the jars in the oven along with the lids by washing them and placing them upside down to allow the moisture to evaporate. Place the lids side by side on the grill. For liter jars, it is enough to spend 15 minutes in the oven at a temperature of 120 ° C, and keep three-liter jars for up to 25 minutes.

The simplest method, proven by our mothers and grandmothers, is boiling clean jars and lids in a huge saucepan or bucket: 7 minutes - and you're done!

Simple treatment

We offer a classic recipe for lecho, which can be considered basic.

We will need the following ingredients:

1.5 kg sweet pepper
1 kg tomatoes
2 onions
50 g sugar
1 tbsp. l. salt
1 tbsp. l. vinegar 9%
50 ml vegetable oil

Peel the juicy peppers from the stalks and seeds, cut them into large slices. Remove the skin from the tomatoes and grind in a blender, chop the onion into cubes. Pour the finished tomato puree into a saucepan, mix with sugar, salt and sunflower oil. Now add the bell pepper slices, bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Cook the lecho for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The peppers should become very soft!

Pour in the vinegar and bring the snack to a boil, then roll it into sterilized jars, turn them upside down, wrap them and let them cool for 1-2 days. A snack prepared this way will last for at least a year if you sterilize the jars correctly. However, why store the lecho for so long? As a rule, before the New Year, only memories remain from it...

How to cook “Lecho without carrots and onions”

Prepare your ingredients.

Peel the pepper from seeds and rinse, then dry, cut into strips or large segments.

Place chopped tomatoes in a blender bowl, pour in tomato juice, add garlic and a spoonful of tomato paste.

Grind all ingredients until smooth.

Transfer the contents of the bowl into the pan, and immediately add the chopped pepper.

Add butter, salt and sugar. Cook lecho over low heat for 40-45 minutes.

After a while, take a sample. To seal, pour in vinegar, bring to a boil and immediately package, screw on the jars and cool under a blanket for 24 hours.

The lecho is very tasty. Enjoy your meal!

Carrot variety

One of the best lecho recipes is with carrots, which gives the dish a piquant and delicate taste. It turns out a little crispy, and the snack only benefits from this!

To prepare we will need:

2 kg tomatoes
1 kg sweet peppers
0.5 kg carrots
300 g onions
150 ml vegetable oil
100 g sugar
1 tbsp. l. salt
1 tbsp. l. vinegar 9%
marjoram and basil - to taste

Puree the peeled tomatoes using a food processor, meat grinder or blender. Boil the tomato puree over low heat for 15 minutes. At this time, peel the peppers, onions and carrots, and then cut them as you want. You can chop the carrots into very thin slices or use a vegetable peeler. Throw the vegetables into the tomatoes, add salt, sugar, vegetable oil and dried herbs, then simmer the vegetables for half an hour over low heat. Don't forget to stir! 5 minutes before the end of cooking, pour in the vinegar. Roll the lecho into sterilized jars, turn them over and let them cool for 24 hours. If you did not boil the jars, place them in a pan of water, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Lecho without tomatoes for the winter

We start by preparing the only vegetable in the preparation – bell pepper. We wash it, remove the stalk with seeds from each, and cut off all the internal veins. Then cut the pepper into pieces or strips of the desired size, more or less - focus on your personal preferences. If desired, you can add one hot pepper to the lecho; in this case, the lecho will turn out to be sweetish-hot, which is also very tasty.

As soon as we are done with the pepper, we begin preparing the marinade. Measure out the required amount of water, bring to a boil and add vegetable oil to it.

After that, add some salt to the marinade and add sugar. Bring the marinade to a boil again and boil it until the sugar is completely dissolved. On average, it takes 5-7 minutes to cook the marinade. (time from boiling).

As soon as the sugar has dissolved, add the prepared pepper to the marinade. Don't be alarmed by the fact that the volume of pepper exceeds the amount of water. Further, when stewing, the pepper will give a lot of juice, and the consistency of the lecho will become ideal.

Boil the pepper in the marinade for 5-7 minutes, measuring the time from boiling. When cooking, it is advisable to stir the lecho once or twice. Already in such a short time, the pepper noticeably “shrinks”. Add the remaining ingredients to the lecho - vinegar, peppercorns and bay leaf. Keep on the stove until it boils, boil for another 1-2 minutes. and shoot.

We sterilize jars and lids for treatment using the most convenient method for you. The fastest way to handle jars is in the microwave - fry them at maximum for 3-5 minutes, pouring a little water into the jar. Just wash the lids with a brush and soda and scald with boiling water.

Fill the prepared jars with hot lecho, cover the jars with lids (do not screw them on!).

And put it in a pan with warm water to sterilize. Be sure to place a napkin or silicone mat on the bottom of the pan - this will protect the jar from cracking. There should be enough water in the pan to cover the jar from the lecho to the shoulders.

We sterilize the jars for 10-15 minutes, the time, again, is measured from the moment the water boils in the pan. The larger the volume of the jar, the longer sterilization must take place. For cans with a volume of up to 500 ml, 10 minutes are enough, for cans with a volume of up to 1 liter – 15 minutes.

After sterilization, carefully remove the jars from the water and immediately screw the lids on tightly.

After twisting, turn the cans of lecho upside down, wrap it warmly and leave it like that until it cools completely, this is 10-12 hours. Then the workpiece can be hidden for storage.

This canned lecho without tomatoes will last perfectly all winter, even at room temperature. We serve it the same way as any other lecho.

Bon appetit!

Previously, we offered a recipe for fried bell peppers for the winter.

Both appetizer and side dish

Lecho with beans and mushrooms is the most satisfying winter appetizer! It completely replaces a side dish and is worthy of decorating a holiday table. True, to prepare the dish you will have to do a little preparation, because the beans and mushrooms should first be boiled.

1 kg tomatoes
1 kg sweet pepper
500 g boiled beans
500 g boiled mushrooms
500 g onions
0.5 cups vegetable oil
100 g sugar
1 tbsp. l. l salt
1 teaspoon vinegar 9%

Chop the boiled mushrooms until they are as small as beans. Grind the peeled tomatoes well or grind them in a blender. Cut the pepper into slices and the onion into cubes. Place tomato puree with vegetable oil, salt and sugar in a saucepan, then simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, remembering to stir this delicious mass.

Add onions and peppers to the tomatoes and cook for another 20 minutes, then add beans and mushrooms and cook again for 20 minutes. Pour in vinegar, cook for a few minutes and remove from heat.

Pour the lecho into clean jars, and then proceed according to one of two schemes. If the dishes are sterilized, roll up the jars, turn them over and cool for 24 hours. If you just washed the containers, then roll up the containers and boil them in a saucepan in boiling water for 15 minutes. And then cool it and hide it in the pantry - so that no one eats it ahead of time!

Product Set

Lecho is prepared for the winter at the end of summer, at the beginning of autumn. It will take about 2.5 hours to prepare. If the vegetables are not from your own garden, then, nevertheless, buying at the market, the dish will not be very expensive. Calorie content is per 100 grams. 102 kcal. Products you need to have:

2.5 kg. bell pepper;
500 gr. onions;
5— gr. carrots;
100 gr. Sahara;
3— gr. sunflower oil;
500 gr. tomato sauce;
4 tbsp. l. 9% vinegar;
750 gr. water
salt, ground black pepper to taste.

This set of products yields a dish for 10 servings. It is worth paying attention that store-bought sauces contain salt, so during cooking you need to taste the dish so as not to spoil it with salt. Lecho is easy to prepare, so even a beginner can handle it.

Cooking process:

Naturally, initially all vegetables need to be washed and peeled and seeds removed. Next they start slicing. Onions are cut into half rings, carrots into thin cubes. You can grate the carrots on a coarse grater, this will make the work easier, but the dish will be a little different. You can try to do it one way or another to determine for yourself which is better.
The pepper is cut into strips. The pepper that is more suitable is the one that is more fleshy; during cooking, it will remain juicy and will not become like a thread, it will keep its shape.
Place all vegetables in a saucepan and mix. Then add sugar, tomato sauce, vinegar, oil and water, and salt.
The container is put on fire and brought to a boil, then it is important to monitor the cooking process, since the lecho can stick to the bottom. It needs to be stirred frequently.
Cook the lecho for 1.5 hours.

The finished dish is placed in sterilized jars and sealed with hermetically sealed lids. After the jars have cooled, they are sent for storage.