I make my own tomato powder from my garden.

Because the powder is very strong in flavor, I use it to sprinkle on top of food.

dcarch

Terri, I also make my own tomato powder. I mostly just eyeball it using about 1 rounded teaspoon of powder & 1-2 tablespoons of water for tomato paste. I also use a pinch in bread doughs & sometimes pizza dough. The powder almost eliminates the need for most canned tomato products (that take up a lot of space & are heavy!). I keep two different types of ground tomatoes around. One is the finely ground powder & the other is a much coarser grind, more tomato bits. That's the one I use for most soups & sauces. By dehydrating & grinding you can store a huge number of tomatoes in a vac-packed Mason jar.

/tricia

Thanks you Two...I was hoping for just these tips!

I use tomato powder instead of storing cans/jars of tomato paste, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, bbq sauce, catsup, etc. I use it in soup, sauces, spreads, all kinds of things. It's my newest favorite ingredient.

In home food storage it's my goal to get the most use from the least amount of foods. I tend to store ingredients, rather than "convenience foods" and make my own convenience foods from ingredients. Tomato powder turned out to be a wonderful addition because I can make so many things with it PLUS common pantry ingredients. It's also a great way to reduce sodium, commonly found in most processed foods, or if you are avoiding gluten-containing foods, which are often found in the ingredients of many processed foods. GREAT STUFF!!!

I'll make some next summer if my tomatoes do well, now that I've found it so useful. For now, I'll use the jar I purchased from The Spice House (link below).

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: The Spice House - tomato powder

One thing I've learned with my homemade tomato powder is that I need to use it faster or store it in smaller containers....it seems to lose color and flavor quickly. This year I'm just re-drying my dried tomatoes a bit and powdering a little at a time. Mostly I use it when something needs more zing...chili, stew, tomato-ey sauces. I dry little plops of tomato paste like fruit leather and I seem to use those more.

I wish I could grow enough tomatoes for my own powder..I don't have a hot house..and that's what's needed around here...

Same here, Terri. We use pvc pipe hoop greenhouses. Otherwise a 60 day tomato takes 80 days. The only reason I got enough to dry this year is because, for the first time in years, I got them out before the first hard frost.

Terri, talk to the farmer's market folks at the end of the day/week. Some will slash prices if you'll take the less than perfect toms.
Cut out the bad spots as needed, dry and powder.
I just ordered 3 #10 cans on my last Emergency Essentials order.
I used to be able to buy 1# bags here locally, but they aren't selling the powder anymore, just chunks. Although.................I suppose I could get those and powder them myself................DUH!!!
Sometimes I just need to hear you guys think. LOL

Terri, email me off line and talk about Azure. I've been thinking about it...

Deanna

"Posted by terri_pacnw ----
I wish I could grow enough tomatoes for my own powder..I don't have a hot house..and that's what's needed around here... "
You should be able to do very well in your zone if you have a cold frame.

I am in z6. with a small garden and a removable greenhouse. I am doing very well with my tomatoes.

dcarch

Ok, I will bite. What is tomato powder?

Peppi, Grainlady posted a link above.

Dcarch, I don't have a removable greenhouse or the like..

I'd like to try making a small "lean to" type thing...but that's way down on the list. Our summer nights are so damp..that it's really hard to get a good fruit set before the hot weather disappears...I do okay with small cherry and pear type tomatoes...

Terri, Thanks for this thread. I use to keep tomato powder on hand but after finishing that last jar, I have totally forgotten about it. Can't explain that! Anyway, time to order more because I know my crop won't yield enough to dry my own.

Peppi, order some from Spice House in Chicago.

"Posted by pkramer
Ok, I will bite. What is tomato powder? "

Just dehydrated tomatoes pulverized.

Just remember that tomatoes are 95% water. If you have 100 lbs of fresh tomatoes, youÂll end up with only 5 lbs of powder. In other words, the flavor and nutrition in 5 lbs of powder is concentrated from 100 lbs of tomatoes.

I separate my tomato powder from red, black and green (GWR) tomatoes. They have different flavors.

dcarch

You can also make your own dried salsa mix.

Grind the dried 'maters but leave a few chunky bits in the grind. Grind dried jalapenos, onions, & a few limes. Mix everything together & add salt/pepper. Vac-pac. When the urge for chips/salsa hits...add water & fresh cilantro!

I can't grow tomatoes here either, Terri. I'm too close to the water. We've got a pretty constant marine layer so there's not enough sun power to even get fruit set much less ripen. Add our high summer humidity levels & it's just a waste of time/effort/garden space trying to grow tomatoes. I drive inland 10-15 miles & buy them by the bushel from growers.

/tricia

I store my jar of tomato powder in the refrigerator to keep it free-flowing, because the refrigerator is a very dry environment due to the frost-free function. I also put a silicon "pillow" (leftover from a supplement we take) in the top of the jar to absorb any moisture in it, and change it out frequently.

When the jar is opened, I make sure I take out only what I need and immediately close the jar to prevent as little moisture in as possible.

For making my own tomato powder, I'm going to make a tomato slurry in the blender using Roma tomatoes (peeled and seeded) and dry it on fruit leather sheets. When the tomato slurry is set, peel it off the sheets and finish drying it until completely crispy without the fruit leather sheets. Then run it through the blender to pulverize it into a powder.

You can also dry tomato paste on fruit leather sheets. When completely dry you can cut them into squares. I have a recipe for Lentil Soup where a 2-inch square of tomato leather is part of the recipe. Now I add tomato powder to the recipe. I make several kinds of vegetable leathers to use for adding to all kinds of things (soup, sauces, casseroles, etc...). It's a good way to clean out the crisper drawer and make veggies into something useful.

-Grainlady

Tricia, I can get field grown/ripened tomatoes from the East side of the State. The little U pick I used to work at brings them over. But they are not pestacide/herbacide...free...so I don't use a lot of them.

Would it work to store it in vacuum sealed jars?

I used it last night..sprinkled about a t into a sausage cream sauce...it perked it right up!

I'm in Zone 5, right on the edge of Zone 4, and like KatieC I find that a 60 day tomato takes about 80 days here. So much for Early Girl, it's no earlier than my favorite Rutgers or Bonnie Best.

No greenhouse, no cold frame, no hoop house. I did use those little wax paper covers one year and found that the ground was so cold that it didn't help to get the tomatoes in the ground earlier anyway.

In the summer our humidity hovers in the 90% or more and I'm 40 miles from Lake Michigan, so I have that extra dampness, but I also have the Lake's micro-climate. So, I grow tomatoes by the bushel, from my old favorites to newer hybrids like SunGold to old heirlooms like Taxi and Mortgage Lifter. I tried covering them for the first couple of frosts a couple of times, but that didn't work well either, so I'm stuck with basically a 90 day growing season.

I've never tried tomato powder, and I get tomato paste in a tube, but I might have to give it a shot. I make little to no tomato based sauces and I did dehydrate the little cherry tomatoes one year and found them to be way over rated and a lot of trouble.

Could the powder be made to last longer if it were frozen? A container of powdered dehydrated tomato would take a lot less freezer room than frozen whole tomatoes...

Annie