Can You Freeze Fresh Tomatoes? | Gardener’s Path

Can you freeze good tomatoes? Short answer: sure enough.

Merely this is unmatched of those times when you should wear for the long answer.

While it's technically possible to stash native produce in your cold storehouse appliance until it can hold no more, there are frequently better options for preserving a surfeit of tomatoes.

I'm not going to grip back with my advice along this thing. I have opinions – strong opinions, which I've wrought over many a years of beingness a nurseryman, cook, food preserver, and frugal-only-generous someone.

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I will hear not to be overbearing. Just I'm also not loss to rent you blackball excellent produce to the icy depths of that bubble over chest freezer in the basement if you won't ever use it to cook with in the future tense.

And I will do my best to steer you off from the greenhorn mistake of "putting finished" countless pounds of cut-up giant fruits that you'll ne'er manipulation, when you could instead center on fashioning tasty jams surgery salsas that you'll actually look forward to eating in the future.

I'll start with the strong-to-Deepfreeze basics, because at that place are times when that's your best option.

Net ball's get going – those ripe beauties aren't going to take care of themselves! Here's what I'll compensate:

What You'll Get wind

• Drawbacks and Advantages
• Invigorated Tomatoes You Should Never Freeze
• Cherry and Grapevine Tomatoes
• Beefsteak Beaver State Slicer Method
• No-Cook Icebox Salsa
• Deep freezer Tomato Jam
• Apply 'Mutton Up
• Better Lot Next Twelvemonth

Drawbacks and Advantages

There's a reason home cooks and gardeners get excited more or less a home canning session for sauce or salsa, but don't work up much enthusiasm for freezing their spare:

While you behind freeze fresh tomatoes, it changes their texture. When you deice them, they're pretty emotional, and English hawthorn comprise rather washy, to a fault.

Photo by Rose Kennedy.

There are substantial advantages to this way of saving extra produce, though. For one thing, IT's quite unproblematic.

No canning jars or vats of boiling pee required, nor pressure sensation canners. Plus, no slaving complete a thermal stove!

And unlike the water-bath versions of canned sauces, if you're planning to put away new heirlooms or Romas into the deep freeze, you don't receive to concern about balancing the loony toons content to assure a safe seal.

If you want to add a bundle of garlic, onions, herbs, or eve oils, you'Re free to do so.

The stifling disadvantage to this method of saving that taste of summer is the texture.

When you work with fully grown pieces of larger tomatoes with the skins along and the seeds still indoors, the thawed result is usually gimp and mushy. Information technology's typically fit just for soup surgery stew, or mayhap to tote up to greaser filling in small quantities.

When you're considering exit this path, I strongly advise you to figure out too soon impartial how umpteen plain tomatoes you use in quotidian cookery, and how many to a greater extent you could incorporate.

If you make chili a couple of times a year, and maybe add tomatoes to a jambalaya operating room seafood dish connected occasion, it's fine to hive up a handful of one- or two-transfuse packets in the old icebox.

But unless you are going to cook with thawed love apple pieces each week, stop on that point. Oh, you can relieve provide yourself with slew of them for cooking, simply gussy them up a bit bit before they off the entrepot shelves for the winter.

I'll share whatsoever good fresh-to-freezer strategies here in a endorsement, along with directing you to our sister site, Foodal, for a red cent useful method acting of making both concasse and pico de gallo with your bounty.

Simply prime, a warning: Sometimes you just shouldn't freeze your haul.

Close that appliance door, put the chopping stab away, and head to the food bank or the compost heap with your extras instead. Take along and please heed my advice to redeem time, money, and place.

Fresh Tomatoes You Should Never Freeze

Spell information technology may seem suchlike a speedy solution to a imperative trouble, there are many times when you should just bury about hard to deal with a surplus via the icebox.

Right up front, I will mention any entrepot-bought varieties that aren't grown locally or labeled as heirlooms.

Bigger varieties hybridized to survive warehousing and transport betwixt farm (or indoor garden) and market Don River't usually have enough taste to warrant saving.

You'll pretty much end raised with mushy chunks you'll plausibly never add to a formula, so wherefore waste the storage place?

That store-bought produce is simply meant to add a little of tomato to your salad or sandwich, non to provide delicious ingredients for wholesome meals in busy or lean multiplication to total.

The grape varieties that growers ship all terminated the world too tend to have pretty tough skins, which do non have a wanted taste or texture after defrosting.

Nor will the thawed versions melt into slow-saute sauce. Instead, they'll maintain the consistency of, say, small bits of cooked apple peel. (I get it on this from the school day of Live and Check.)

With any tomatoes you grow yourself, though, you still have a fighting chance of getting a couple of decent packs stashed away to use in future stews and sauces.

Even native "slicing" varieties, or beefsteaks, will coiffe okay just cored, cut into pieces, and unchangeable with their skins happening. But I would never recommend trying to preserve a thumping box or bucket of them.

Rather, only make the effort in that cause every bit an absolute last resort. In my impression, there just aren't enough appealing shipway to bring them into your cooking act.

I'd encourage you to do a petty extra chopping, squeezing, and shedding, or possibly even a little cooking for any beefsteak-type surplus. And maybe sum up a few unneeded ingredients before stashing them departed.

That way, you'll have a sauce or salsa, or even a jam, ready for you to defrost and enjoy in the future.

It will make up something to look forward to!

If you act up want to "put up" a full-grown batch and you're going to bribe produce, try to pick the burdensome-fleshed, Italian "sauce" tomatoes or otherwise paste varieties that are ideal for canning.

Those will produce the meatiest texture and the most robust taste, whether you just stash them as is, skins and all, or joint, puree, or reduce them to a brilliant, jammy mixture first.

Cherry and Grape Tomatoes

I'm not saying to buy up the farmers market just for the purpose of making these.

Only information technology's convenient and beneficial to flash-frost tiny tomatoes, every bit long as they passed the "not sold in Chain groceries from growers who live far, far away" prove.

Photo aside Rose Kennedy.

Then put them connected a super-clean rimmed baking sheet. (I've even used a red-rimmed serving tray in a pinch.) Down the sheet of paper in the icebox and leave IT there until the fruits are icebound.

If I'm in a hastiness, I parting the little green superior on. If I've got an extra bit, I pop them off during this step to save time when I'm ready to fix them.

Just remember: they've got to break off at some point before cooking!

Pic by Rose Kennedy.

Usage a funnel operating room spoon to place the orbs into a freezer-rubber small jar with a know-on chapeau.

Or, you can place them in freezer-condom stackable BPA-free storage containers like those from the Genius collection made by Rubbermaid, available on Virago.

Rubbermaid Freezer-Safe Storage Containers

That's it! You can add what you need directly into a stewing soup surgery stew, piece they're calm in a frigid province.

Or you can also unfreeze them in the fridge overnight to add to a vegetable-nut scramble, operating theater to add to the slow cooker on with a hatful roast and veggies.

I've also had good hazard storing the tiny frozen fruits in congius-size bags to lay flat and tidy sum, which bathroom be a real space saver.

As long American Samoa they're frozen solid when you put them into your container of choice, you'll glucinium in good shape. If they're not, they'll deposit together.

Beefsteak operating theatre Slicer Method

You can use the same scheme for bigger tomatoes, even out oversize 'Mr. Stripeys' or 'Big Boys.' You will want to core them first, though.

And you can leave the skins on, and cut them up into chunks first – or not, as you wish.

But don't expect the thawed production to be ready to serve as a pull dish. When you de-ice frozen fresh tomatoes, they tend to be a bit mushy.

They'Re not fancy, merely you can add them to a bumper-to-bumper-simmered homemade vegetable soup, or function them sparingly in chilli.

You'll unquestionably need to take a few more stairs to turn them into something that will sum up feeling and have a good texture, though.

If you're willing to put in a bit more work, you can freeze fresh tomatoes in a chopped, seeded, raw form that lends itself to umteen delicious dishes.

Photo by Nikki Cervone.

More extensive directions for this method, called concasse, are wait for you on our sister site, Foodal.

Essentially, IT involves blanching the ripened fruits in boiling water system for 30 seconds and then transferring them to an methamphetamine bath for about Phoebe minutes to stop the preparation process.

When they have cooled, information technology's bad easy to slip off the skins.

Next, you'll squeeze KO'd the seeds and succus, which eliminates much of the water that commode produce them taste a bit claptrap when you defrost them. This really improves the texture!

And before you store the colorless fruits, you first cut them into a commodious size for whatever you like to cook the most. Think bruschetta, or salsa, or perhaps omelets – each requires a different size chop, so be sure to label them consequently when you pack them away.

I'm all for concasse, because it is worthy the effort to take in more fully prepared, tastier 'maters to thaw throughout the winter months.

Instead, you can also follow the blanching and ice bath method described higher up so simply remove the skin and stem core and freeze them whole earlier transferring to freezer bags operating theatre containers.

But I will interject other opinion here. I can't resist, and if you knew me bettor you wouldn't expect me to…

I feel care if you're willing to attend all the trouble to blanch and squeeze and chop, you mightiness as well go a little advance and make something you can reheat and eat right after thawing.

Read on for two more than suggestions that are easy-peasy.

No-Make Icebox Salsa

If you're going to pick a gang of fruits, yield counter space to them, and take out the knives and cutting board, the way I see it, you might as well leave the blender and make some salsa.

That way of life, many weeks surgery months later, you can just defrost and proceed with making your nachos operating room whatnot.

I like this recipe for blender salsa, which I altered from another favorite Marisa McClellan work, "Preserving away the Dry pint," available along Amazon.

Preserving by the Dry pint: Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces

Basically, the difference between her formula and mine is that I'm not willing to peel surgery simmer the tomatoes, or semen a hot pepper, and she is. I say, skip the extra fag!

Hera's what you coiffure to yield Little Jo cups total:

1. Place the favorable in a blender or food processor:

• 4 cups cored, chopped tomato plant
• 1/2 cupful minced onion
• 2 chopped garlic cloves
• 1 roughly chopped jalapeno or hot banana Piper nigru
• 2 tablespoons fresh unslaked lime juice or white oleoresin vinegar
• Zest of indefinite lime
• 1 tablespoon flake surgery kosher Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
• Chili powderise or cayenne pepper pepper, to taste (optional)

2. Process it until the mixture has the texture of your favorite salsa. Sample a trifle and tot up more tasty if needed, addition chili pepper pulverization or cayenne to taste.

3. Divide information technology into small containers and place them in the refrigerator. Be sure to leave at least an inch of space at the tip – the salsa will expand at low temperatures.

When you're ready to eat it, let it defrost in the electric refrigerator for eight to 10 hours. Stir and serve.

This is also a good chili or vegetable soup addition if you're out of canned sauce. (I, for one, am forever out of canned sauce!)

If you want to get really fancy, feel free to bring off the thawed salsa to a boiling point and then reduce the heat and simmer information technology for five minutes, as per the underivative recipe.

Don't have time Beaver State the ingredients for this? I suggest fashioning the tomato-salt-vinegar depart, freezing, and and so adding the other stuff and generous it some other whirr in the blender after you defrost it.

Deep-freeze Tomato Jam

If you harbor't ventured into the wonderful world of freezer jams, that extra bushel of soon-to-bunk red veggies is a great excuse to start.

Our baby site, Foodal, covers all you need to roll in the hay or so the different slipway to stool jams and jellies. They really make water it direct!

And this formula for tomato jam, also from Foodal, is an excellent selection for freeze.

If you like those types of cooking projects, the chase formula is another with child prime for protective that bumper crop a cup at a time.

IT will go on glacial for up to a year, and is ace ambrosian on bruschetta, in omelets, and, dare I say it  – slathered on hot biscuits!

This interpretation also comes from "Preserving aside the Pint," merely I'll give you the short version:

1. Wash a dry pint of farmers market or garden variety grape tomatoes and place them along a rimmed baking sheet of paper with eight peeled garlic cloves.
2. Scattering the veggies with a couple of teaspoons of dried thyme and a teaspoon of eccentric OR kosher salt.
3. Drizzle all with two tablespoons of Olea europaea oil.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes in a preheated 300˚F oven.
5. Process the tender roasted mix in a nutrient central processor or blender until IT is the consistency of chunky Arachis hypogaea butter.
6. Scrape it into a half-dry pint jar or container.
7. Cover with a thin layer of olive oil and then a lid and pop IT in the freezer. Deice overnight in the refrigerator before victimisation.

If you've got more than a dry pint of extra cherry or grape tomatoes, you can double or triple the recipe.

But make sure you save it in the one-cup portions. That's just enough for a flavorsome addition to few special meals, without it existence so much you look like you are troubled to serve it at every repast.

And IT's the hone size for sharing with a friend or delivery as a host gift.

Habit 'Mut Up

Did I postponemen this long to tell you you may not eventide need to frost that overflow? Yes, yes I did.

Photo by Rose Kennedy.

But only because I wanted you to know that you have lots of bully options, without making you flavour depressed if you've already let things go to that extent that wildly slinging jars and bags of whole frozen fruits has become your only option.

If that ripening heap hasn't reached critical mass, there are other ways to contend with a bumper crop.

First and simplest is to make a really good clean salsa recipe. There are more than a few not bad options on our sis website, Foodal. You have my permit to skip the blanching and peeling if that volition make this more manageable.

Make a huge bowl. Make up predestined to eat it with chips, on eggs, and in omelets. Horde a party and serve IT. Freeze some, if you wish.

Make up another big bowl, only this time shake in diced purple onion, a bit of hot sauce, and few cups of chopped seeded cucumbers at the end.

Presto, you've got gazpacho! Ready to sip from small cups during happy hour, or to eat with relish at that long overdue lunch date you've been planning.

Photo by Allison Sidhu.

For something just a little enthusiast, try this version from Foodal.

Not feeling it with the cookery projects? Remember, local churches Beaver State charities that run over the hungry may be quest some novel ingredients.

Large Harvest tail end help you to find a local organization that is taking fresh food donations. Make a point to claim or email for an okay before you come with your boxes of ripening produce, though.

1. Make a brine by bringing deuce cups of white vinegar, unitary cup of water, deuce tablespoons of cane sugar, one tablespoon of pickling salt, 2 tablespoons of minced fresh basil, four crushed garlic cloves, two slices of lemon, and a large bay thumb to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat and Army of the Righteou the brine simmer for three proceedings, gift information technology a ripe excite to dissolve the salt and sugar.
3. Pack about four cups of chromatic operating theater grapevine tomatoes in a unrivaled-dry quart canning jar, then use a funnel to fill the shake up with hot brine to a half inch from the lead.
4. Cover the jar with either a canning lid and ring (not too tight!) or a threaded plastic chapeau sold for this intent.
5. Lashkar-e-Taiba information technology come to room temperature.

Incoming comes the hard part:

When you place this mixture in the refrigerator, you have to time lag one whole calendar month for the flavors to meld! Past it's game along for pickles that are super tasty on a tray of appetizers or as a garnish for Bloody Marys.

And you can use the brine arsenic the acetum in your favorite homemade French dressing.

Better Fortune Next Year

Once you make it through this season and actually use up completely your overindulgence 'maters, so proceed to fake all your frozen goodies and have space amidst the ice cream once more, I implore you to pause and valuate.

Are on that point slipway you could avoid having to go done all this again? You bet in that respect are, and they aren't that tough.

My first gentle suggestion:

Consider growth to a greater extent determinant tomatoes, and make sure they're varieties suitable for canning.

Determinants tend to fruit over the course of study of a couple of weeks, not months. That means you tin can pick them all at once and make huge batches of delicious marinara to freezing, or use a urine bath to tooshie dozens of jars of salsa all at once.

That way, you will be planning ahead for a bumper craw and can schedule the stocking up, instead of panicking late in the season when at that place are thusly numerous!

And make up sure to check come out of the closet our steer to growing tomatoes to get started.

There's also something to exist said for carefully choosing a CSA so that you receive hatful of slicers from topical anaestheti farms each week, but also a fair percentage of the varieties you can misrepresent with throughout the season.

Simply ask! Nearly growers are happy to balance your share with much of the type of bring on you put up practice easily if you choose to sign in the lead for one of these locally.

And I do it this is other pretty sound opinion, but I would urge you to test to mature your own block when you commode, and buy locally (and seasonally) when you can't.

When you financial support sustainable growing methods, you'll almost forever be competent to backside, halt, dehydrate, or store any of your extras.

Elsa's Favorite Salad?

At the final stage of the day, I look like anyone who has a surplus of this home garden best-loved is fortunate indeed.

Isn't it wondrous to be healthy to experimentation with contrasting ways to save your surplus, so see which ones work best for your meal planning and preferred appreciation profiles?

Speechmaking of personal taste, if you have your own favorite methods for preserving beefsteak, Roma, cherry, grape, or currant bush tomatoes, let's have them!

Get together the conversation in the comments department below, and remember, photos are always a welcome increase.

And you can get word more about growing tomatoes in the plate garden away reading these articles incoming:

• How to Cook Tomatoes Turn Redness When They Refuse to Ripen on the Vine
• How to Grow Tomatoes in Containers
• How to Grow Cherry Tomatoes

Photos by Rosaceous Kennedy © Ask the Experts, LLC. ALL RIGHTS Unemotional. See our TOS for more inside information. Product photos via Rubbermaid, Moving Press, and TI INC Books. Uncredited photos: Shutterstock.

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