This year my garden had an abundance of tomatoes. Red, juicy tomatoes, orange tomatoes and bite size tomatoes. I was very pleased with the amount of tomatoes the garden produced. Every year I freeze tomatoes for the winter months. This year I was able to freeze 16 containers of tomatoes. When I make sauces I add these tomatoes to my recipe. It really adds to the taste of my sauces.
I wanted to share with everyone how I went about freezing my tomatoes. I like to make the process as easy as possible. I freeze peppers, zucchini and tomatoes. I would freeze onions but I used all my onions. We didn’t get that many so I didn’t go to the trouble of freezing the ones I had. I just cut them up and put them in recipes.
Every day I go out to the garden and get a bucket of tomatoes. This is time-consuming but so worth it because of the end result. I bring my tomatoes in the house and wash them in the kitchen sink. I put them on the counter to dry until I’m ready to use them. I bring my crockpot out and plug it in. This is a time consuming project so hopefully you will have the time to devote to this.
I take each tomato and I peel the skin off. This takes a really sharp knife. Be very careful not to cut yourself. After peeling my tomato and removing the stem I’m ready to begin the process of preparing them for the freezer. I cut my tomatoes into large chunks. I place each tomato in my crockpot and add salt and pepper.
My crockpot is 6 quarts so I have room for a lot of tomatoes. I fill my crockpot 3/4 of the way full with the tomatoes. I cook my tomatoes on high for three hours. The tomatoes will still be chunky when you remove them from your crockpot. Turn off the heat and let cool for a little while before transferring your tomatoes to your containers. I put freezer containers on the counter to fill with my tomatoes. I find that the tall containers work best for tomatoes. They are easier to store because they don’t take up as much room in the freezer. I will say between my peppers, zucchini and tomatoes my chest freezer is starting to fill up fast. I do want to get a new upright freezer but I’m still pricing them.
I use a ladle to put the tomatoes in each freezer container. It’s really the easiest way to transfer the tomatoes from the crockpot to the container. There’s not much dripping with a ladle. One of the most important things to remember is that you want the least amount of cleanup possible when you are done.
After all your containers are filled let them sit on the counter until they cool to the touch. The next step is to put them in the freezer. These tomatoes will be perfect in soups and sauces.
I have done this every year since we first started having a garden. We used to have two gardens but now we just have one big garden. We have a lot of deer that have taken up residence in our yard. Because of this we have two fences to keep them out. We have one fence on the ground and another fence on top to keep the deer from jumping over. It’s a miracle we have any tomatoes at all. This year the rabbits dug under the fence. Thankfully we still had a great year with our vegetables. At the beginning of the growing season we had so much rain that the garden actually got put in late. It didn’t seem to harm our tomatoes.
If you should decide to freeze your tomatoes I think you will be very surprised at just how good they will taste in your recipes. I know that it is more work than opening up a can but so worth it. Enjoy!