Going through the process of boiling water and poaching tomatoes just to remove their skins has always felt labor-intensive and rather annoying to me. Happily, I recently learned that freezing tomatoes can accomplish the same end!
This is yet another small yet mind-blowing tip from David Tanis and his book Heart of the Artichoke. He describes freezing bags of whole fresh tomatoes for quick tomato sauces and soups all year round, and actually prefers this to canning. Thawed on the counter, he says the skins easily slip off the fruit.
Freezing and thawing tomatoes feels much more straightforward to me than boiling them to remove their skins, especially if I only need a few tomatoes for a recipe. Even when preparing a whole batch of tomatoes for canning, it would be easy enough to freeze them together on a sheet tray.
This also gives us something to do with the tomatoes that ripen before we can use them - just pop them in the freezer until you have enough for a sauce!
How do you usually remove tomato skins?
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Kinda wish I had read this yesterday! I was all ready to skip the canning part, but I did boil the tomatoes first to skin them, then I blended, cooked, and froze the sauce.
I'll freeze my next batch!
nice! so preferable to boiling anything in the heat of summer.
I've never tried it - I always use the boil method when making summer tomato sauce. I'll look forward to hear from anyone who has tried the freezing method!
I boil and slip the skins then chop 'em up and freeze them in quart size bags, roughly the same amount as a can of diced tomatoes. I usually only have a couple bags worth to process, so I'd rather get rid of the skin right away. I use these tomatoes when cookingin the the fall or winter and a can of diced tomatoes is call for.
Wow, revelatory!
Does everyone really hate tomato skin in their sauce that much? I always leave them on.
This method also works when trying to soften cabbage to make cabbage rolls! It's even better than steaming. Cut out the core, pop in the freezer until frozen, pop out of the freezer until thawed, and BAM! the leaves fall right off.
I just use a sharp knife.
I use a mill that removes the skins and the seeds.
This is great -- if you've got enough freezer space for it.
We discovered a couple summers ago that using the turkey fryer is the best for boiling tomatoes, blanching veggies that need that, and even canning. It lets us keep the heat, humidity and mess outside and brings the water to a boil much quicker than our stove can.
Why bother? Don't the skins provide additional nutrients and fiber?
do we think this would work for peaches as well? it would be an awesome timesaver when making pie/cobbler etc
I did this last summer and it worked great, I had tomatoes for sauces all winter. Didn't know about the cabbage posted by "breakfast"though, will try that as well. I love simplicity!
I've never understood why people remove the skins.
I've been doing this for years. We call ours 'tomato bricks'. As in, "Hey, could you bring me 5 tomato bricks from the freezer when you come back in? I'm making spaghetti tonight." Works great for soup, sauces, chili, etc. Last year I just tossed the bushel basket full into 2 13 gallon trash bags & dropped them into into the bottom basket in our upright freezer. I still have a whole bag left...no freezer burn at all.
I used to use the hot water thing. This tip is so AWESOME. Love that David and You for posting.
wow kasiav - ditto your thinking on the peaches... wouldn't hurt to give it a try!
frozen peaches work like this, too, @melvina and @kasiav. i didn't have time to peel and freeze peaches last year, so i just threw them into the freezer whole. now when i want a peach (for a smoothie!), i just retrieve one, run it under hot water, and the skin slips right off. getting the frozen fruit off the pit, however, is a bit more difficult, but doable.
I was under the impression that you don't refrigerate tomatoes because of flavor compounds that are switched off in the cold. I wouldn't freeze tomatoes for that reason.
I found this out by accident when I was freezing the tomatoes as they ripened until I had enough to make sauce. It works really well, it not only gets the skin off but removes a lot of the water so you do not have to boil your sauce down as long.
I wash the tomatoes, cut off any spots and the stem scar, the freeze. When I am ready to make a batch of sauce I put the frozen tomatoes in pans in the oven at 250 until they melt and the water runs off. Drain then in a strainer, don't squish them or stir them because you only want to remove the water. then I chop in food processor for a few seconds then run through food mill to remove seeds and skin.
It sounds complicated but it is quicker then blanching, skinning and removing seeds from each tomatoe by hand.