If, for some reason, you’ve reached your saturation point for tomato-bocconcini-basil salad/bruschetta/tomato bisque/insert-name-of-favourite-tomato-recipe-here, you may be wondering what to do with all those ripe tomatoes sitting on your counter. Last week I reached that point, and, rather than let the fruit flies carry off my ‘maters, I decided to oven dry them.
Following the basic instructions in Put ‘em Up, my new food preserving bible, I oven-dried a whack of tomatoes. It really is the simplest thing in the world, and being inclined toward laziness, I can’t imagine why you’d preserve tomatoes any other way.
Simply slice the tomatoes in half, drizzle with olive oil, and place cut side up on a baking sheet.
Bake at 250°F for five-six hours until shriveled and browned in spots. Freeze for up to six months — if you can manage to restrain yourself from eating them straight off the baking sheet.
Delicious.
I recently oven roasted tomatoes also, and made some sauce. I had a bushel of ripe tomatoes so it had to be done. It was my first time doing the oven roasted them, and I felt a bit worried that the oven was on for so many hours. I wonder how much energy it takes.
I forgot to include my link.
http://nycgardening.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-do-you-do-with-bushel-of-tomatoes.html
That’s a great idea! I think you’re right though, the tomatoes might have a tough challenge getting past my mouth to the freezer. ;)
Straight into the freezer? Being another ‘leans towards laziness’ person I love this final step! For some reason I thought they needed to be packed in oil for storage. LOVE it – thanks for posting!
I grew a “for cooking” variety tomato variety for the first time this year, I couldn’t even believe the difference in taste between just regular fresh eating tomatoes and “cooking tomatoes” especially after slow roasting! So I did a side by side roasted tomato taste test between Amish Past(cooking), Spring(fresh eating) and Sweetie(cherry). The Amish was so much shockly yummier Hands down, the seed packages were right! I am still learning :)
Roasted tomatoes are the best. I pack mine into a jar along with some garlic and herbs and fill it with olive oil. It keeps well in the fridge. When you have eaten all teh tomatoes you can use the oil for flavouring.
Wow we were both on the same page as I posted about oven roasted tomatoes too, your method looks even faster though,
Wow we were both on the same page as I posted about oven roasted tomatoes too, your method looks even faster though.
Been drying them for years. Slice them thin, place on racks and put into the dehydrator. Takes about 18 hours but when finished they are hard to resist. Put them into 1 gallon ziplock bgs and place into freezer. Once frozen take and run them through the food processor. Grind into a powder and then back into the freezer.(too sticky if not frozen) Use the powder for thickening when making chili, soups etc. Never too many tomatoes.
Yumminess! If we could grow big tomatoes I’d be doing that in a second. Maybe we’ll have to buy some and give it a try.
This with feta and olive oil on sliced italian bread = tomato heaven! Thanks for the post.
looks delicious..I will try it out this weekend!!
I am loving the simplicity of drying tomatoes, I think I will try this next year.. Thanks for the post..
It really is difficult to restrain from eating them right away! I oven-dried a ton of Lemon Boys thinking we could freeze them; they never made it. They are delicious on top of pizzas.
Just made these this past weekend! thanks for the idea! YUMMY!