Tomato harvest begins. If you cannot consume all of the fresh tomatoes you collect in the season, do not know where to use them, or cannot imagine a winter without tomatoes; You are at the right place and at the right time to read these storage methods we have compiled for you.
While we have access throughout the year, July, August and September are ideal seasons for tomatoes. Remember our mothers bought kilos of tomatoes from the market and jarred them for the winter? We also love the tradition of stocking tomatoes when they are at their freshest and tastiest, and we want to increase our options in new ways. It will be very easy and enjoyable to store your tomatoes in sauce, pickled or dried for a long time, depending on the type of your tomatoes or your taste - we claim that you will not want to return to the products full of sugar and preservative chemicals sold in the markets.
What You Need
You don't need any special equipment for jarring and storage applications. Anyone who has an oven, stove, hand blender and a solid stock of jars at home can easily apply these methods.
Sauce Making
Drying Tomatoes
Storage Ideas
Sauce Making
You can make sauce with juicy and loose tomatoes, though you may not be able to achieve the ideal consistency. For this very reason, tomatoes for tomato paste sold in markets are closer to the Roman or San Marzano type, and we recommend them. You can buy tomatoes for storage, or you can find tomato seedlings to grow just for this purpose at the beginning of the year. Or you can just match the leftovers with a recipe that is suitable for its consistency so that it does not spoil.
Large stem tomatoes are also ideal for making sauces, as they provide a very dense ingredient.
It is very possible for you to get overwhelmed and question life while peeling and chopping your tomatoes, but think of it this way: You will thank yourself while eating your spaghetti with fresh sauce that you prepared in 10 minutes on that cold winter evening.
Passata: If you boil and jar tomatoes in the traditional way without adding any ingredients, you will get the tomato sauce needed for all meals and pizzas. Boil tomatoes with a little olive oil and salt (optionally dried basil or thyme), place in the jar and turn them upside down.
Marinara: When the onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil leave their aroma and soften, add the chopped tomatoes. Boil until the tomatoes are completely soft. Puree with a hand blender and let it cook on low heat for about 4 hours. Add chopped fresh basil or parsley at the end.
Pomodoro: Add the chopped tomatoes to the onion you sautéed in olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, some sugar and fresh basil; cook for about 2 hours.
Puttanesca: Add chopped tomatoes, olives and capers to the garlic sautéed in olive oil.
Ketchup: Separate the seeds of your tomatoes and beat them with a hand blender. Strain to get rid of the skin and seeds completely. After boiling the tomato juice, let it stand for 45 minutes, stirring, on low heat. Add apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, celery seeds, ground cinnamon, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and salt.
Drying Tomatoes
Small-sized tomatoes are ideal for drying.
After you wash your tomatoes and cut them in half, make sure to remove the seeds inside, so you will avoid the bitter taste that will occur after drying. After removing the seeds, cut your tomatoes into smaller pieces for faster drying and easy consumption.
Although it may seem tempting and practical, it is possible to make dried tomatoes in the oven without expensive dehydrators.
Place the tomatoes on baking paper in your baking tray, sprinkle salt and leave to cook for 2.5 - 3.5 hours at 120 degrees. You don't need to stir or flip them in the process, but be careful not to burn them.
You can season the tomatoes while drying or after drying. Our preference is to put it in a jar after it dries in the oven, and garnish with olive oil, bay leaves, 1-2 cloves of garlic and optionally fresh or dried aromatic herbs. If you want to season it while it is in the oven, you can add dried spices on the tomatoes in the baking tray in the last 1 hour.
Tomato Powder: You can obtain tomato powder that can be sprinkled on your meals by passing the dried tomatoes through the mixer.
Storage Ideas
You should store your jars either in the refrigerator or in a dark and cool pantry or cupboard. Exposure to sunlight will cause them to spoil faster. When stored properly, you can safely consume it for about a year.
Another method is to store it directly in the freezer. In this case, you should wait for your tomatoes to cool, then store them in a container or bag suitable for the deep freezer and consume them within about 6 months.
Dried tomatoes, on the other hand, are short-lived in the jar and can be kept in the freezer for about 3 months.
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