The Easy Way to Freeze Tomatoes
If you have a garden producing tomatoes that you can’t keep up with, freezing them is a great way to quickly preserve them before they go bad. Even if you are wishing to do canning projects such as tomato sauce, whole tomatoes, or spaghetti or pizza sauce, sticking them in the freezer is perfect. Then you can take the tomatoes out later on. The nice part is you can then make those canned goods when your kitchen isn’t so hot. Also, you won’t have other fruits and veggies vying for your preservation attention in the winter. Read on to learn the super easy way to freeze tomatoes.
When I have too many tomatoes to keep up with, I pop them in the freezer.
It is a simple process.
First, rinse on your tomatoes. Most likely they are pretty clean from your garden, but a quick rinse is a good idea.
Depending on the type of tomato you have, you might want to cut out the core. It will make it easier for the skin to slip off later.
Next, cut an X on the bottom of the tomatoes before slipping them into a zip top bag. This step isn’t necessary, but it will also make it easier for the skins to slip off after defrosting them.
There is no need to flash freeze the tomatoes on a tray. I just slip them all into a zip top bag. They don’t tend to stick together anyway.
Fill the bag up and then pop into the freezer.
Sometimes I just have a few extra tomatoes at a time. I just toss them in a new bag or add to one I have going. Other times I have a whole counter full and fill up many bags.
When you are ready to use the tomatoes, take them out of the freezer and put the bag in the sink too defrost.
The first time I wanted to defrost tomatoes to make sauce for dinner, they took way longer to defrost than expected. It took most of a day to defrost and did not get to my planned recipe that same day like I thought I would. So make sure to plan on a day of defrosting and then the next day using up the tomatoes.
Some of those recipes we like to use for our tomatoes when we are ready to use them are:
- Canned Tomato Sauce Recipe from Melissa K Norris
- Simple Roasted Tomato Sauce from Homestead and Chill
- Our favorite for many years Garden Fresh Marinara Tomato Sauce from Reformation Acres
Learn to Freeze other Garden Bounty
- How to freeze Corn
- How to freeze Green Beans
- Freezing Kale and Other Leafy Greens
- How to Freeze Bell Peppers
- How to Freeze Blueberries
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