How to Put Up Tomatoes (Freeze Tomatoes the Easy Way)
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Tomatoes grow aplenty in the South, so here’s the easiest way to put up tomatoes. Freeze your garden fresh tomatoes to enjoy year-round.
It’s that time of year again (in the South, at least). If you planted tomatoes back at the start of the summer, they are likely coming in by the bucketful right about now. Around this time of year, I feel like I have tomatoes coming out of my ears! Still, I LOVE to grow tomatoes and I know full well this bounty will come in very handy once the growing season is over. As Weezy said in Steel Magnolia’s, “I am an old Southern woman. It is my obligation to wear funny hats and grow tomatoes”.
I actually know very few Southerners who don’t grow tomatoes. They are so easy to grow and produce such remarkably versatile fruit that can be made into any number of dishes and even preserve with ease. So, on the chance that you are also experiencing a bounty of tomatoes, I thought I’d hurry up and get this post to you so that delicious produce doesn’t go to waste.
Preserving tomatoes is so easy though, so you don’t have to wait until you have a bucketful! If you even have one tomato that is quickly ripening with no immediate need for it, use this same method and freeze it to use in a dish on another day. Waste not, want not – and nothing beats a garden-grown fresh tomato.
Of course, you can always can tomatoes, but freezing is just about the easiest (and most inexpensive) way to preserve fresh garden produce so that is the one I’m bringing you today. This method is also more convenient for smaller batches.
Today, I’ll be putting up five heirloom tomatoes from my gardens. They don’t know how lucky they are that I let them turn red! I’ve been frying up green tomatoes left and right here lately but these five managed to grow up despite my fried green tomato love. As I said, this is so easy that you can use this technique to freeze tomatoes whether you have 1 or 100.
Recipe Ingredients
- Tomatoes
- Pot of boiling water
- Freezer bags
How to Put Up Tomatoes
Blanch tomatoes
Our first step is to blanch the tomatoes, so drop them into a pot of boiling water.
Like so.
After a minute or two, the skin will split like this.
Remove them as the skin splits with a slotted spoon and place them in a dish (I use a 9×13 baking dish).
You don’t want to use a plate because when you remove the peels and chop them up there will be a lot of yummy juice involved.
If you have very ripe tomatoes they will take longer to split open. But hang in there, I promise it will happen.
See? Nice and split. Now for the cool part!
Oh, speaking of cool, you’re gonna want to let these cool down a bit. You can either wait half an hour or so or place them immediately in a bowl of ice water to speed up the process.
If you try to peel them now you’ll find they are about as hot as little fireballs!
Then, just take hold of the tomato skin and it pulls right off!
You’ll need to get a knife involved at the top, where the stem was attached. Cut that part off.
I discard all of my skins and tops but they’d be great in a compost bin if you have one.
This is what they look like with the skins removed. You can tell a few of them gave up the ghost rather quickly.
I like it when things obey me, even if it is just a vegetable. We gotta take our little triumphs where we can get them!
Now I chop each one up but you can leave them whole if you prefer.
They are slippery so be careful.
Here they are, all ready to be bagged ( and all).
Freeze tomatoes
I like to write on my bag the date and where they came from.
If your grandmother sent the tomatoes to you, it’s always nice to be able to call and say, “We had the most delicious stew made with your tomatoes today”.
Fill your bag up, get out as much air as you can, and freeze! It’s best to freeze them flat as they’ll retain that shape.
They are now ready to be used in sauces, stews, and anything else you can dream up.
There is NOTHING like your own fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter (or any other time of year for that matter).
Storage
Frozen tomatoes will retain their flavor for up to 12 months. Thaw them in the fridge before using them.
Recipe FAQs
What kind of recipes can I use with my freezer tomatoes?
The options are basically endless, but here are some suggestions:
- Stews: smoked sausage and beef stew, slow cooker beef stew, and famous Alabama camp stew.
- Use them for tomato sauce, tomato salsa, or tomato puree, like my super easy spaghetti sauce.
- Soups: tomato basil soup and pizza soup.
- Crockpot chili
- Easy weeknight suppers instead of canned diced tomatoes, like slow cooker sloppy joes, crockpot swiss steak, and skillet lasagna.
What type of tomatoes can you freeze?
This method for freezing tomatoes works for all types of tomatoes, like Roma tomatoes (also known as plum tomatoes), heirloom tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. If you use the latter, you can keep the skins on as long as you don’t mind the skins being in whatever you dish you make with them later.
Ingredients
- fresh tomatoes
- boiling water
Instructions
Blanch Tomatoes
- To blanch the tomatoes, drop them into a pot of boiling water. After a minute or two, the skin will split. Remove them as the skin splits with a slotted spoon and place them in a dish (I use a 9x13 baking dish).fresh tomatoes, boiling water
- Cool these down before moving on to the next step. You can either wait half an hour or so or place them immediately in a bowl of ice water to speed up the process.
Cut Up Tomatoes
- Once cooled, take hold of the tomato skin and it pulls right off! You'll need to get a knife involved at the top, where the stem was attached. Cut that part off. Now I chop each one up but you can leave them whole if you prefer.
Freeze Tomatoes
- Fill your freezer bags up (getting out as much air as you can), date them, and freeze! It's best to freeze them flat as they'll retain that shape. Thaw in the fridge overnight before using in your next soup, stew, or supper.
You may also want to check out these posts:
Canning Tomatoes (Complete Video)
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I noticed that in all the posts re: canning tomatoes that no one made mention of adding lemon juice. Ball Blue Book says 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (concentrated) per quart of tomatoes, along with the salt. When I have small amounts of tomatoes from my few plants, I skin them in the boiling water, core & chop, & vacuum seal them in a qt. jar, & refrigerate until the next 25 lb box purchased from the Farmers Market. I do have to make sure not to place a refrigerated jar into boiling water or it will burst for sure. I put up as many Qts as I can get my hands on each year as you never know what the following year will bring!
christy, all my tomatoes aren’t coming in at once, so I was wondering if this method would work for me to can and make salsa and pasta sause when I have enough bags to work with?
I usually just core my tomatos, put them in a heavy duty freezer bag and into the freezer they go. When I am ready to use them, I dump them all into a big pot and let them cook down a bit, slowly. Then I put them through a food mill. Easy as can be. I am on my last bag from 2010.
Another great way to handle them is to slow roast them in the oven first. For larger tomatoes, slice into thirds and for romas, cherries, or grapes, slice in half. Put some olive oil on the sheet tray and on top of the tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a little pinch of sugar and roast @ 300F for 2-5 hours (depending on size and juiciness) until most of the moisture is gone and they are starting to get a little brown. You still want them to have some moisture – you aren’t going for sun-dried tomatoes for this application. They are great to use anywhere you would use diced tomatoes – over pasta or veggies or, my personal favorite…on toasted french bread that has been spread with cream cheese. You can freeze them in baggies just as you do your fresh tomatoes and they have a long life in the freezer.
We always seemed to have an abundance of cherry tomatoes at the end of the season. My Mother would just pop them in a bag, with the skin on and raw. When she made vegetable soup, she dropped those in whole and with the cooking of the soup the peel would turn loose and float to the top. That is how she did it. I have not tried it but might work for you too. She made the best veggie soup. Wish I had a good one. Do you have one that taste like “Mama made”?
Love, love, love home grown tomatoes, especially when I need a pot of vegetable soup in the middle of winter! Thanks for sharing, Christy!
Blessings, Pat
Thanks Chrisy, I have never canned anything but would love to put up some vegetables. You taught us how to freeze corn and now tomatoes and it does look simple. Appreciate any other vegetables you can show us how to freeze.