We have got a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, way more than we can eat and give away. I’ve tried drying tomatoes in the past and just wasn’t satisfied with the results. I’ve never tried canning. Can I freeze tomatoes?
Any recipes, hints, suggestions?
If you are gonna use them in sauce just freeze them whole, but make sure that they are put into containers…I know from personal experience that they tend to fly all over the kitchen like billiard balls if they are loose in the freezer.
Keith
Mermaid,
Here’s a great Football Sunday recipe that I make…I love to make extra and freeze it. I have it posted on my cooking website at http://www.colorado-cooking.com which is open to all who want to post, not just Colorado people.
This is a combination from a restaurant recipe in Santa Fe and a friend of mine who was born and raised in New Mexico and hispanic.
Green Chile
[/list]
[li]2 tbsp olive oil[/li][li]2 pounds boneless pork, cut into 1-inch cubes (pork tenderloin is best)[/li][li]½ cup chopped onion[/li][li]1 clove garlic, minced[/li][li]¼ cup flour (whole wheat is very good with this)[/li][li]2 cups peeled and chopped fresh tomatoes (I prefer the Roma/Italian tomatoes)[/li][li]2 cups roasted, peeled and chopped fresh green chiles or 2 - 7 oz cans green chiles drained and chopped you can also find frozen chile in most grocery stores[/li][li]1 fresh jalepeño, chopped[/li][li]1 tsp salt[/li][li]½ tsp fresh ground pepper[/li][li]½ tsp sugar[/li][li]1 tsp marjoram[/li][li]1 tsp cumin[/li][li]1 cup chicken or beef broth[/li][/list]
Heat olive oil in a 4 quart pan with a cover. Add pork and cook until lightly browned. Add onion and garlic and stir with the meat. Add flour and stir 1-2 minutes.* Add tomatoes, green chiles, jalepeño, salt, pepper, sugar, marjoram and cumin. Mix well. Add broth. Lower heat (about medium low). Cover and simmer for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until meat is tender.
Serves 6
IIRC They go all mushy when frozen (we did a project about preservation in High school)
This is because tomatoes are mostly water. Becuase the temperature of a home freezer is not cold enough the tomatoes freeze slowly, causing big ice crystals and breaking down cell walls in the tomatoe, causing it to go mushy.
Mermaid,
Here’s another one I found on my site…might be a good one.
Shrimp with Tarragon and Tomato
[ul]
[li]32 shrimp, 26-30 size, peeled and deviened[/li][li]1/8 cup vegetable oil or olive oil[/li][li]½ cup onion, small, diced[/li][li]1 Tbsp green peppercorns, crushed[/li][li]4 cloves garlic[/li][li]1/8 cup Pernod Liquor[/li][li]3 tomatoes, medium, diced small[/li][li]1 Tbsp fresh tarragon, chopped[/li][li]1 Tbsp butter or margarine[/li][li]to taste, kosher salt[/li][/ul]
In sauté pan, begin to sauté the onions until translucent and sweet. Add in the shrimp, garlic and green peppercorns and sauté until shrimp begin to turn pink. Remove the pan from the flame and add in Pernod liquor. Return sauté pan to the open fire and the liquor will flame. Be Careful! Continue to cook until the flame dies down. Add in the diced tomatoes and fresh chopped tarragon and continue to sauté. The tomato mixture will begin to form sauce consistency after about 4-5 minutes. Finish the sauce with a little butter or margarine and salt to taste. Serve over your favorite pasta and enjoy!
4 servings
This is a recipe from “A Healthy Taste” featured on Channels 5/30 during the noon news (a local TV station.) I saw him prepare it and even I drooled over the recipe as a non-seafood lover, I could see eating this without the pasta and a fresh salad on the side!
Gartog,
I am sure that any freezing of any food will break it down but I would imagine that if you thaw them like you would meat, in the fridge (slow thawing) you would have better results. I imagine that thawing anything too quickly will result in poor taste, flavor and consistancy. In some dishes that don’t require fresh tomatoes, like the green chile recipe above, I imagine the results will turn out just fine.
If the recipe requires fresh tomatoes then I would only use fresh tomatoes but if it was a slowly cooked dish then tomatoes that are frozen then thawed would be perfect and cheaper than buying canned tomatoes.
Oh and one last thing, think about peeling a few before freezing for those dishes that require “whole peeled tomatoes.” I would see they would be just as good as the canned variety unless you need the juice in your recipe. And heck, they are practically free since they came from your garden.
I forgot to add to the Green Chile recipe…
Side with some warm buttered tortillas, rolled up. They are great dipped in the Chile too, just dip and munch. You can even add some pinto beans either on the side or in the Green Chile. I usually let people decide whether they want the beans in or on the side or any at all. Usually people add the beans in it but some prefer to have it on the side.
BTW, that would be whole beans and not “refried” or mashed, if you will.
Also, Green Chile is great served over a bean burrito and popped in the oven to warm it all through just cut up the pork a little more to say 1/2 an inch for that application.
Add a dollop of sour cream with your Green Chile in the individual dishes and it helps cut the heat for those not used to spicy dishes.
This requires fresh tomatoes while you can use canned tomatoes in the Green Chile, really you can, this one uses both but is very good and healthy…yep, going crazy posting recipes I have. I apologize but I love food and cooking is therapeutic to me.
Light Tomato Sauce
[ul]
[li]2 tbsp olive oil[/li][li]2 tbsp chopped onion[/li][li]1 clove garlic, minced (I use the garlic press)[/li][li]4 fresh tomatoes peel then chop.[/li][li]1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, put in blender till smooth[/li][li]1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock, since I don’t drink wine, I use the chicken broth[/li][li]1/4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed[/li][li]1/4 tsp marjoram[/li][li]1/2 tsp salt[/li][li]pepper to taste[/li][li]1/2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley[/li][/ul]
Sauté garlic and onion in olive oil until onion softens. Add tomatoes, blenderized tomatoes, wine or broth, rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low. Cook uncovered for 25 minutes, take from heat and add parsley.
If you have a pasta maker, try this with a whole wheat, lemon-pepper linguine. Use lemon pepper, regular pepper and lemon juice as part of the process. If you’re feeling brave add in some fresh garlic to the pasta. They do have a lemon pepper pasta on the market but it’s way too lemony and over powers your sauce, I recommend homemade lemon pepper. If you don’t have the pasta maker, a nice linguini or even spaghetti is good with this.
I usually mess around with the herbs and in the summer time; I like to use fresh herbs.
Of course, I always sprinkle some grated (not the can kind) Parmesan on top.
About 4 servings
It’s the freezing that does the damage, though slow thawing might help.
But as you rightly pointed out they would be great for recipies which do not need fresh tomatoes.
The recipies you have posted sound good ,I bet they taste pretty good too 
Get the Food Saver.
I have one of these and it’s great! I’ve used it to freeze corn on the cob, plums, peaches, apricots, carrots… the list goes on and on. I’ve also used it for spaghetti sauce, lasagna, carrot casserole, every meat imaginable… all kinds of stuff. It was kind of expensive but definitely worth it. We use it for everything.
We used the plums and peaches that I froze about 6 months after freezing them and you couldn’t tell they had been frozen. Same with the corn. It tasted as if we had just picked it out of the field… and it was frozen for over a year. I haven’t tried it with tomatoes but I can’t imagine it not working. Without the air surrounding the tomatoes I don’t think they would get mushy or anything. I may have to try to freeze some now, just to see how it turns out.
Try drying them.
Then for safety sake freeze them.
You can get a lot of dried tomatos in a freezer bag.
They are good in soups,chili etc.
If you have a dehydrator you don’t even need the sun.
Wash tomatos and remove stems
remove skins by dipping in hot water and peeling.
cut in slices.
Takes 1.5 to 2 days in dehydrator