Oven dried tomato storage

11 years ago

Now that I've made enough sauce for the winter, I am wondering if I can make oven dried tomatoes for long term storage. In the past, I've frozen them but I wonder if there is a better method of storing. Any suggestions?

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Comments (9)

James McNulty
11 years ago
Most ovens I have checked either do not have an accurate thermometer or uneven heat distribution. Do NOT depend on the temp. shown on the oven dial without using a good thermometer to check it for accuracy.
My oven at home is off 50 or more degrees and has a drying cycle but it runs at about 255 degrees which is too hot to dry tomatoes (to retain maximum nutrition) or prevent blackening.
Hunt for a home dehydrator. Maybe someone in the family has an Excalibur they are not using (realistically not much chance of that however.)
Jim in So Calif
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planatus
11 years ago
I still can some sauce, but prefer drying the bulk of my tomato crop. I don't think you would do well in the oven because tomatoes take a long time to dry, depending on type. Rings cut from paste tomatoes go pretty fast, but the batch of juicy Black Krims I did this week probably took 8 hours at 135 degrees with fan (in my Excalibur).

You might use your oven to make "half dried tomatoes" which are then frozen. You dry halves until they collapse, then freeze them. Excellent in winter salads!
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Eileen, all you have to do is pick all your green ones, bring them in the house and they will all ripen/turn red. You can also pull the whole plant out of the ground and hang it in a garage or barn and they will all continue to ripen. To encourage ripening on the vine outside, discontinue watering. I don't know if you could dry green ones (can't see why not) but they sure would be bitter and I don't know what you would use them for. You could use fresh green ones for salsa verde or fried green tomatoes. Earl, smaller types I slice length wise. Bigger types, stem end down to bottom. I grow only paste types so few seeds, which I remove most of. If you are using tom's with a lot of seeds, you should probably remove them as they get pretty bitter. And I know seeding tomatoes (other than in a squeezo or something) is a huge pain-in-the-butt! Cutting slices that are the same thickness is important because then your slices will dry at a similar rate of speed and you don't have to keep picking through the trays on the dehydrator taking out the ones that dried the quickest. Also, I have a commercial dehydrator so mine has 1/2" metal squares. I spray the trays with pam to avoid sticking. Most home dehydrators have teflon trays but if not, the Pam works really well.
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digdirt2
11 years ago
Agree with the above. Get a dehydrator if you want good, well-dried tomatoes. Otherwise do the half-dried in the oven and then freeze them.

Dave
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ikea_gw
Original Author
11 years ago
So what do you do with half-dried tomatoes? You take them out of the freezer then just put it on a salad?
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cannond
11 years ago
Jim: Along these same lines, I've read that in Italy tomatoes are frequently brought into the kitchen, still on the vine, and hung upside-down to dry. Then, they're taken from the vine as needed. Would this work? Would it be safe? I'm assuming they're Roma tomatoes, but who knows.
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digdirt2
11 years ago
So what do you do with half-dried tomatoes? You take them out of the freezer then just put it on a salad?

Salads, on sandwiches, pizza topping, added to chili or spaghetti, mixed into cooked vegetables or pasta salads, casseroles, anything you would normally add tomatoes to.

Dave
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jackieblue
11 years ago
I have never tried dehydrating in an oven but I love my Excaliber. Can't recommend having a good dehydrator enough. Have dried a ton of tomatoes. They are very easy to store in jars or food saver type bags. I do two things with them mainly. Snacks right out of the jar, and they are great on sandwiches. Also once dry they can be placed in a blender and made into powder which can then be used for soups or seasoning.
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nancyofnc
11 years ago
cannond - the "dry on the vine" tomatoes are the heirloom variety called Principe Borghese in Italy. They do dry them that way but their climate is very different than ours and with all the air pollution everywhere, I doubt if they do that as much now that they also have dehydrators and don't have to worry about sun scald, bees/wasps/flies, and air-borne bacteria and molds. That tomato is one of the best for dehydrating but next comes Roma and San Marzano, along with about 100 other heirloom tomato varieties, including the yellow, orange, pink, and green ones.

My husband thought I was off a little when I asked Santa for an Excalibur until I told him that he had good tools in his workshop that cost more than that year-'round tool, and that it would save us a lot of money over time. He is definitely a proponent of dehydrators now. Some veggies that are getting a little too ripe or soft get dried for adding to soup 6 months later or so, same with just about any kind of fruit, most herbs just when winter will be hitting us, and of course tons of tomatoes drying then used as "sun" dried, powdered, made into leather for snacks, or to be made into paste or soup anytime of year. I also make flaxseed crackers, fruit leathers, hot pepper flakes, squash/pumpkin seeds, whole slices of pineapple "flowers", and candied ginger.

You can dry flowers, make yogurt, jerky, and lots of other things in the dehydrator. I think of it as another appliance like the stove, refrigerator, and freezer.

Nancy
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cannond
11 years ago
"the "dry on the vine" tomatoes are the heirloom variety called Principe Borghese in Italy"

Thank you, Nancy; this is good to know.
Do you have any specs on the efficiency of the Excalibur? I winced a bit when I saw the price on Amazon, though it gets high marks from reviewers.

I wonder if dried tomatoes could be used to make fermented salsa, a condiment we use in copious amounts around here. I expect it would have to be brined, rather than relying on the tomato's natural juice. Does anyone know?
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