Last night I pulled a couple of bags of our home-grown slow-roasted tomatoes out of the freezer to make cream of tomato soup and realized that for whatever reason, the only forms of preserved tomatoes I have seen commercially produced are canned and dried (with the occasional jar of sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil).
Why is that? Freezing is a much better way to preserve the taste and texture, at least if you’re going to cook with them. And any fresh tomatoes you can buy in the Midwest in January are just sad. I was so glad, when we bought the house, that we would have a basement, because that meant we could have a separate standing freezer!
Bonus round: what can I do with a couple of gallon bags of diced frozen green tomatoes? We’ve done a sauce with bacon and onions, and a curry with potatoes and garam masala, but could use some new ideas.
I don’t think freezing is better at maintaining the texture. I think you might be comparing your lovingly made at home frozen product with mass produced canned. I bet if you jarred those slow roasted tomatoes, they’d be better. Tomatoes have too many different consistencies to freeze as well as some fruits, imho. “Turns them to mush” seems a common problem with frozen tomatoes.
I’ve seen frozen tomatoes, as part of “chopped mixed veggies” bags. It was pretty recent though, I guess what gets put into those will vary by what’s available and what seems to be more marketable in different locations.
I’m definitely a winger when it comes to stews and the such. I generally use plenty of onions, garlic, green chiles, and then a mix of green tomatoes spiked with a a smaller amount of red tomatoes or tomato paste. Spices are typically cumin and a bit of Mexican oregano or regular oregano for that herbal note. There are a few recipes online if you google “green tomato chile verde.” ETA: Oh, yeah, and then plenty of pork shoulder and a bit of chicken stock. If you don’t eat pork, chicken thighs will work, too. Heck, you can probably do beef chuck, as well, though I’ve never had chile verde with beef. (Not sure why – it always seems to traditionally be pork, but I see no reason why beef wouldn’t work just as well.)
In my fairly limited experience with frozen tomatoes, they’re mushy enough, with enough released water, that they’re not any better than canned tomatoes (unlike, say, peas).
Given the choice is something you can leave of a shelf or something that has to stay frozen, I’m not surprised canned tomatoes won out.
I eat pretty much anything We’ve done stews close to that with the green tomatoes, but usually with poblanos and a squeeze of lime and some chopped cilantro at the end, and minus the red tomatoes/tomato paste and stock. Pretty tasty - maybe we can branch out.
Fresh tomatoes in stores or farmers’ markets are rather more costly than the canned sort; I’d hesitate to freeze them and waste their lusciousness. Those I’ve raised, no problem. I grew cherry tomatoes from a bush so prolific that freezing was my only option, and they were great in sauces.
In medicine, if there are twenty different ways to treat something (like common warts) it is often true none of the ways are superior, or even all that good.
The fact frozen tomatoes aren’t common implies the canned stuff is better. I’d rather use cans of San Marzano than most of the supermarket tomatoes I could buy. The best fresh tomatoes are small ones, farmers market or homegrown heirlooms. The average supermarket tomato in Canada, most times of year, is nothing special.
Frozen tomatoes mean the costs of refrigeration at source, for transport to market, at the store then at home. Yet most people don’t use more than a large can or two at a time. And heavier users can just use larger containers.
I would actually extend that to “all the supermarket tomatoes I could buy,” unless I need to use them in a fresh manner (like for sandwiches and whatnot.) I’ve never had a supermarket tomato that is as good as a canned tomato for saucing and cooked usages like that.
In peak tomato season at the end of a farmer’s market, you can often get a lot of tomatoes, more than you could reasonably eat before they go bad, for not much money, because the alternative is loading them back up onto the trucks to try to sell at some other farmer’s market later in the week.
We’ve frozen tomatoes when we got them that way (and peaches, and other soft summer fruits). They’re better than canned for later cooking just because the tomatoes are so good, but I bet if someone took amazingly delicious farmers market tomatoes and canned those, they’d be as good as what we froze and wouldn’t take up freezer space.
We’ve done stews close to that with the green tomatoes, but usually with poblanos and a squeeze of lime and some chopped cilantro at the end, and minus the red tomatoes/tomato paste and stock. Pretty tasty - maybe we can branch out.