After a busy summer of seed starting, planting, watering, and weeding, it’s now time to harvest and preserve all those tomatoes!
Here’s what I’ve found is one of the easiest ways to quickly process tomatoes from the garden into something we actually use over the winter.
Step 1
Pick as many tomatoes you can from the garden that are ripe (or in some cases just a few when you have time). Clean them in your kitchen sink, and start chopping!
Step2
For a pureed tomato sauce I roughly chop the tomatoes, removing any bad spots, and add to my food processor. Pulse until they are all liquified.
For a “diced” tomato style, I chop the tomatoes into bite size pieces and skip the food processor.
Step 3
Add to a large pot and bring to a boil. Once some of the liquid has boiled off and the pureed tomatoes have reduced. Take off the heat and allow to cool.
Step 4
Seal it up! I use a Weston Vacuum sealer. But in the past, I’ve also just used ziploc freezer bags.
Ladle in the tomatoes and get out as much air as you can. Seal up the freezer bag, or vacuum seal the bag. Be careful not to vacuum out the liquid (follow the directions on your vacuum sealer unit).
Step 5
Freeze laying flat in the freezer. Once frozen, these stack much better to save space.
That’s it! Easy!
How do we use these frozen tomatoes?
Over the winter, we pull out these frozen bags of tomato puree to add into chili, vegetable soup, or to make a homemade spaghetti sauce. Most of the time I defrost in my fridge for a day or so before opening, but sometimes I defrost on the counter and add “mostly defrosted” tomatoes to my chili recipe. (“recipe” for chili is a loose term in our house. Ha!)
There are lots of great ways to can tomatoes too. I usually save my canning for pickles and salsa so by the time I’m behind in preserving my harvested tomatoes, I often go for the quickest option.
Whether it’s diced or pureed tomatoes, it’s up to you! What do your family’s favorite recipes call for – diced or pureed? I do about a 50/50 mix of diced and pureed for our freezer.
Can’t wait until chili and soup season!
