Freeze tomatoes? Sure! It’s a great way to save the flavor of these warm summer days.
If you grow your own tomato plants, it makes preserving the fruits of your labor just that much more special.
My mom would freeze several containers of tomatoes every August. It was a secret to her amazing spaghetti sauce. (Another secret was that she always put a piece of pepperoni or salami into the sauce pot.)
Freeze Tomatoes after Skinning and Seeding
I’ve come across different directions for processing tomatoes. Some include blanching to remove the skins, and some do not.
I think removing the skins is a necessary and easy step. Cooked tomato skins are tough. They interfere with the enjoyment of the sauce. Ditto the seeds.
That’s why you don’t find seeds or skin in professionally-prepared tomato sauces.
You can use a tomato press, food mill, spoon, or strainer to separate the seeds from the pulp. Your method depends on how many seeds are in the tomatoes.
Roma tomatoes are perfect for freezing because they have few seeds and lots of pulp. But, I have frozen all types of tomatoes, especially the “scratch and dent” bonus bushels you can sometimes find at a local farm stand.
Once you have a few bags or containers frozen, you can add your tomatoes to your favorite sauce. The tomatoes will bring a new level of flavor to your recipe.
How to Freeze Tomatoes
Ingredients
- fresh ripe tomatoes
Instructions
- Wash tomatoes and remove stem-end with a paring knife or strawberry huller.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add a few tomatoes at a time, cook for 30 seconds, and remove to a large bowl with a slotted spoon.
- Allow tomatoes to cool until they can be easily handled. Halve tomatoes and clean out seeds with a spoon. If you do this over a bowl and strainer, you can save the juice.
- Remove skins by squeezing pulp out and peeling off any remnants.
- Spoon pulp and juice into freezer bags or containers. Freeze.
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