Quick Tip: Freeze & Thaw Tomatoes to Remove Skins

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?

Related: Hot and Steamy: A Visual Tour of Hot Water Bath Canning

(Images: Kristin Hohenadel and Kathryn Hill)