Preserving Tomatoes: DIY Freezing

My stomach is larger than my freezer

I recently acquired 40 lbs of tomatoes (for free!). Since I cannot consume all these tomatoes at once, I have started making sauces, salsas, and other tomato based foods. I will be demonstrating one way of preserving without needing a pressure cooker or mason jars.

Freezing tomatoes is simple. I first remove the skin on each before stuffing them in plastic bags.

Let's save the harvest

To remove the skin, first start boiling a pot of water. Fill a different bowl with ice and water. Take the tomatoes you wish to freeze and cut a small 'x' into the end. This helps remove the skin after blanching.

Yes, 'X' marks the spot

X

Throw these tomatoes into boiling water for 1-2 minutes.

Cookin'

Once 1-2 minutes have passed, or if the tomato skin visibly cracks, remove the tomato from boiling water and plunge it into the ice water.

Not quite the 300 Club, but close.

It should be easy to peel off the skins with your fingers.

'Naked'

Once the skin is removed, place tomato into Ziploc bag. Repeat above steps until bag is full. Place bag(s) into freezer. Congratulations you now have tomatoes for winter.

Bag it and tag it

Frozen tomatoes can be thawed by microwaving, warm water, or leaving them on the counter. They work the same as regular tomatoes and can be used the same way as fresh ones can. Here are a few images of food items I've made with my batch of tomatoes so far.

Pasta Sauce/Pizza Sauce

Pizza from sauce pictured above

UPDATE: 2/11/2014

Today is the day I decided to thaw and process these frozen tomatoes. I had 2 bags in my freezer. I thawed them by leaving them on the counter overnight. I used my new blender to liquefy them and made some sauce with them. I plan to make some pizza this week.

My new blender works well

Concentrating tomato

I got about 80 ounces worth of sauce. That should be enough for at least a few pizzas.

2 1/2 jars worth of sauce