Urban Homekeeper’s Challenge For Today
Aug 7th, 2008 by Sylvia
Dry Your Own Tomatoes
My tomatoes are just starting to come out of the garden in large numbers. But in a week or two, they will be pouring out and I will have to start canning. In the mean time I don’t want to lose all those little tomatoes that come first, so I like to dry them.
Dried tomatoes can be used in cooked dishes, salads, soups and stews, casseroles and marinated they take on all kinds of delicious flavors.
I use a food dehydrator, but if you don’t have one, you can use a low oven, about 200*F. It will take several hours in an oven, perhaps as many as 6-8 hours to get the tomatoes dry. It all depends on your oven so you must always keep an eye on your tomatoes as they are drying.
You can dry tomatoes until they are crisp and then crumble them in soups, dressings and stews, or you can dry them til they are leathery and use them in casseroles and pasta dishes and for marinating. I dry them both ways.
If your tomatoes are NOT plum tomatoes, you may need to cut them open and wash out the seeds and pulp before drying them. Seeds and pulp dry up to an unusable crumble, so just wash it all out and then slice the fleshy part of the tomato to dry.
Lay the slices on mesh screens in your dehydrator, or lay the slices on parchment paper on a cookie sheet in your oven. Dehydrators take different amounts of time but the usual is about 4 hours for leathery tomatoes where the tomatoes have been sliced 1/4″ thick. Most dehydrators have instructions and temperature gauges for drying vegetables like tomatoes, so follow those.
Some people like to lightly oil the mesh screen or parchment paper before adding the tomatoes. Unless you are going to marinate the tomatoes, I don’t think its a good idea. It adds oil to your tomatoes, obviously and that oil will not allow your tomatoes to get crisp if that’s what you’re looking for.
After your tomato slices get to the texture you are looking for, gently remove them from the cookie sheet or mesh screen. Let them cool and pack them inside small glass jars or in zip top plastic bags. They will last longer if you freeze them.
If you want to crumble them, put them in the zip-top bag and press them with a glass or rolling pin until they are broken up and crumbly.
To marinate dried tomatoes:
For marinated tomatoes you want to use tomatoes that have been sliced and dried to a leathery texture.
You can use a simple olive oil marinade. Pour good grade olive oil over the tomatoes in a small jar. Push the oil around in the jar with a small plastic spatula so that it gets all around the tomatoes. You can add a clove or two of garlic if you like and as many fresh herbs as you like. I sometimes use basil, oregano and thyme along with the garlic. I don’t normally measure, I just use a sprig or so of each and a couple of garlic cloves. You could also add some peppercorns.
Remember that these tomatoes need to be refrigerated. The oil will solidify, but when you take it out it will quickly get liquid again as it comes to room temperature. Use the olive oil that the tomatoes have marinated in for cooking too, it is delicious!
These make great gifts too. You can dry your tomatoes, pack in zip lock bags and freeze them. At gift-giving time, pull them out, and re-pack in a small jar, pour the marinating oil and herbs over, put a lid on and let sit in the frig a couple of weeks before giving.
Thanks for sharing these wonderful directions. I am tickled for you that you have bountiful tomatoes to preserve! Love, Wardeh
Wonderful tips and ideas. So far I have been turning my tomato harvest into salsa and spaghetti sauce. But I may have to dig out my dehydrator…..
Welcome home,
Susan
I’ve had a poor harvest, but the last two years the weather has been dreadful and most people’s tomato plants have not done well at all here in the UK Sylvia.
We have years like that, too. Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes for everyone around here. The heat and lack of water was just too much. I did find some good buys on plum tomatoes last year and bought several for drying though.
Sylvia