Looking for a few delicious and simple ways to use up all of those frozen tomatoes in your freezer? As you will see below, freezing tomatoes is an excellent way to quickly preserve a portion of your summertime harvest from your garden.
While thawed tomatoes might not have the firm texture of a just picked tomato, you can still enjoy their fresh flavors that supermarket tomatoes just can’t touch. From making delicious soups to creating quick sauces and more, frozen tomatoes are a great garden resource to have on hand, especially in the dead of the winter.
Whether you froze whole tomatoes, skinless diced tomatoes, or even tomato puree, having a freezer full of tomatoes is a true gift, of course, as long as you use it up before a new growing season settles in to make room for a new harvest!
Why Freezing Tomatoes Is A Great Solution For A Big Harvest
There is certainly nothing wrong with canning fresh salsas, juices, sauces, and soups during the summer months. However, when you are in the thick of the garden season, sometimes there just isn’t enough time to go through all of the ripe tomatoes coming on all at once.
Unlike some garden produce recipes, it can take hours to cook down your favorite tomatoes to turn them into thick, rich sauces or soups. Combine that with the time spent watering, weeding, and harvesting your garden, and it can sometimes leave little time left for canning.
In addition, cooking on a hot stove for hours on end doesn’t usually appeal to people during the heat of summer. So why not freeze a portion of your tomatoes and save that task for the middle of a cold winter’s day? Especially since it’s so quick and easy to do!
With freezing, you are able to lock in the ripe fruit’s peak flavor and nutritional content. In addition, you can freeze tomatoes in small batches until you have a large amount to process all at once. It really is a great alternative when things get busy.
How To Best Keep Tomatoes In Your Freezer
Frozen tomatoes can be kept in several different ways, including whole, diced and pureed. Although you can save them with or without their skins on, if the tomatoes are frozen with their skins in place, then the process of thawing them out makes skin removal a cinch. Which is something that can be quite tedious when tomatoes are fresh!
Whatever your reason for freezing tomatoes, it really is a great alternative when it comes to preserving. The key, of course, is to put those frozen tomatoes to good use in delicious recipes. And today, we have 3 of the best ways of all to use frozen tomatoes!
How To Best Use Frozen Tomatoes From Your Freezer
The first key to using frozen tomatoes is to know where they work best. When you thaw out frozen tomatoes, they are typically a bit softer in texture than their fresh counterparts.
While the flavor is still there, the consistency unfortunately isn’t. For this reason, it’s best to use frozen tomatoes in dishes you will be cooking such as sauces, soups and even casseroles. Avoid using frozen tomatoes for making salsa or pico, they are just simply too soft.
If you did freeze tomatoes with the skins on, they are simple to peel. One way is to allow the tomatoes to thaw fully and then separate the skin. Another way is to run the tomato under hot water for about 10 seconds. At that point, the skins should easily slide off.
Any variety of tomatoes works well for adding to most dishes. Paste tomatoes will help to thicken soups and sauces. Tomatoes with higher juice content will naturally add more liquid to dishes. Cherry tomatoes are a great choice for adding to soups and sauces as well.
With that in mind – here is a look at the 3 of the best ways of all to use up those tomatoes from your freezer!
#1 Using Frozen Tomatoes For Soups
Winter is the perfect time to enjoy hardy homemade soups and stews. And as it turns out, frozen tomatoes are the perfect ingredient for making a long list of amazing soups. What’s more, you can freeze the finished soup to prolong your garden harvest even more!
When using tomatoes from your freezer for soups and stews, it’s best to thaw out the tomatoes before adding them. Thawing them first allows you to chop larger or whole frozen tomatoes into smaller pieces. This will allow them to break down more quickly and heat evenly as they do.
Some of the best soups to make from frozen tomatoes include classic tomato soup, chili, lasagna soup, vegetable beef, minestrone, tomato bisque, cheesy tortellini and jambalaya. You can even make cold soups like gazpacho with frozen tomatoes as well!
Turning Frozen Tomatoes Into Sauces
Sauces are the perfect way to enjoy the fresh flavors of garden tomatoes. And the best way to make the most flavorful sauces is to use a variety of different tomatoes. Since it can be hard to harvest enough freshly picked tomatoes of different varieties to use during gardening season, freezing is often the best option.
Once you have enough tomatoes, you can then create all sorts of different sauces. And the flavor combinations are endless! You can make these sauces on an as-needed basis for each recipe. Or, you can create large batches to process and have on hand for future meals.
The textures and flavors of tomato sauces can vary as much as the dishes they go with. Try your hand at making homemade pasta sauces, pizza sauces, chunky marinara sauce – and so many more using tomatoes straight from your freezer!
Making Tomato Juice From Tomatoes
Lat but not least – use those freezer tomatoes for making delicious and versatile tomato juice!
Tomato juice is delicious for drinking, but you can also use it in several different recipes. From turning into a morning Bloody Mary drink to adding it to soups, stews, sauces, salsas, and more, tomato juice is a great product to make from frozen tomatoes.
Tomato juice requires only the liquid from tomatoes. Once the skin, core, seeds, and flesh have been removed, all you are left with is juice. The amount of liquid you get will vary depending on the tomato variety since some tomatoes have more water content than others. See: Our Favorite Recipe To Make Great Tomato Juice!
Large slicing tomatoes or cherry tomatoes work best for turning into juices. Make sure to fully thaw your tomatoes and remove the skins before using. Do not drain off any liquid that results from the tomatoes thawing. That liquid will still carry a lot of flavor and it’s important to keep it in the mix.
Place thawed tomatoes and the juice into a large stockpot and cook for about 10 minutes. Next, run the contents of the stockpot through a food mill. This will help to separate the juice from the seeds and pulp. The juice that is left can then be seasoned or used accordingly. (Affiliate Product Link: Stainless Steel Food Mill)
No matter how you decide to process your frozen tomatoes, freezing really is a great way to extend the fresh tomato flavors the whole year around!
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