Too Many Tomatoes? Three Easy Ways to Preserve Your Harvest

Every gardener who plants tomatoes faces the August glut. The vines that were polite in June are giving you ten pounds a week by mid-August, and the family has eaten so many BLTs they are starting to twitch. There are three reliable ways to preserve the harvest. Use one or use all three. By February you will be the most popular cook on the block.

1. Convenience Preservation: Freezing

The fastest method. No special equipment, no special ingredients. Frozen tomatoes work for soups, stews, chili, sauces, and pretty much anything cooked. The texture suffers, so they are not for salads or fresh sandwiches, but for hot dishes they are nearly indistinguishable from fresh.

Whole frozen tomatoes:

1. Wash tomatoes. Pat dry.
2. Spread on a baking sheet in a single layer. Freeze 2 to 3 hours until solid.
3. Transfer to freezer bags, label, and freeze up to a year.
4. To use: run a frozen tomato under warm water for 10 seconds; the skin slips right off. Chop or use whole in cooking.

Tomato puree, frozen:

1. Core and roughly chop tomatoes.
2. Cook over medium heat 15 to 20 minutes until soft.
3. Pass through a food mill or blender. Strain if you prefer no seeds.
4. Cool. Pour into freezer bags (1 to 2 cups per bag). Freeze flat for easy storage.

2. Old Fashioned Water-Bath Canning

The classic. Sealed jars of whole or crushed tomatoes hold a year or more in the pantry and are ready for any sauce, soup, or chili you want to make. The tomato is acidic enough for water-bath canning (no pressure canner required), as long as you add a little extra acid (lemon juice or citric acid) for safety. The current USDA recommendation calls for 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice per quart of tomatoes.

Equipment: water-bath canner or large stock pot with rack, half-pint or pint or quart canning jars, two-piece canning lids, jar lifter, canning funnel.

Method:

1. Wash jars and lids. Keep jars hot in the canner of simmering water.
2. Blanch tomatoes 30 seconds in boiling water, then 30 seconds in ice water. Skins slip off.
3. Core, peel, and roughly halve tomatoes.
4. Pack into hot jars. Add 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice per pint (2 tablespoons per quart). Add ½ teaspoon salt per pint (1 teaspoon per quart) if desired.
5. Top with hot tomato juice or boiling water, leaving ½ inch of headspace.
6. Wipe rims, seat lids, screw rings fingertip-tight.
7. Process pints 40 minutes (quarts 45 minutes) in a rolling boil with jars covered by at least 1 inch of water.
8. Cool 24 hours undisturbed. Check seals.

3. Drying

Dried tomatoes are concentrated flavor in a shelf-stable form. Use them in pasta, on pizza, in grain bowls, on cheese plates, or chopped into salad dressings. Oven or dehydrator both work.

Oven method:

1. Slice tomatoes in half (Romas) or in ½-inch slices (slicers). Salt lightly.
2. Spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cut side up.
3. Bake at 200°F for 6 to 10 hours until leathery and dry to the touch but still pliable.
4. Cool, store in airtight jars with a few sprigs of dried thyme or basil. For longer storage, cover with olive oil and refrigerate (use within 3 months).

Dehydrator method: 135°F for 6 to 10 hours, with slices on perforated trays.

Extra Time-Saving Tips:

Skip the peeling for sauce-style preservation. Run cooked, unpeeled tomatoes through a food mill; the mill catches skins and seeds in one pass. Roma and San Marzano tomatoes have thicker walls and lower water content; they are the right choice for canning and drying. Slicing tomatoes (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple) are better for freezing or fresh eating.

Cook by the Best Days Calendar

The Farmers’ Almanac Best Days calendar marks the most favorable days for canning, pickling, preserving, and baking, drawn from the moon’s signs and 200 years of almanac tradition.

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How Much to Put Up

A working pantry holds, per person, about 12 quarts of canned tomatoes (for sauces and stews), 6 to 8 pints of frozen puree or whole, and a pint of dried. For a family of four, that is roughly a bushel of tomatoes total. Plan to spend one Saturday in August on canning and a few smaller sessions on freezing and drying as the season runs.

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Denise Dill

Denise Dill is a co-op livin', garden diggin', homegrown cookin' fool who creates soups of song out of local ingredients. She's currently working as a baker and soup maker while she completes culinary school. In the past, she worked as an urban gardener and community cooking educator. She has also toured the country as a folk musician, opening for such acts as Pamela Means and Hamell on Trial.