Oven-Dried Tomatoes

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What to do with a surplus of little sweet tomatoes from the garden?

Our daytime temperature is falling fast, but we’re still getting large handfuls of sweet grape tomatoes from the garden every day. After seeing the price of sun-dried tomatoes at the grocery store ($4.00 for a small bag? and look at the preservatives!) I decided to try my hand at making my own.

I researched a few recipes, but all of the “good” ones seemed to start with “Fire up the dehydrator….” Not being in possession of such a device (and not wanting to spend days babysitting tomatoes sitting out in the sun), I went with the oven method. It was amazingly painless and easy.

First, I selected the tomatoes to use. I wanted bruise-free fruits, and the ripest ones I could find. Some of them could have been slightly more ripe, but they all turned out quite tasty in the end.

I preheated the oven to the lowest setting, which for us was 175° F. I washed and dried the tomatoes, destemmed them and sliced them in half. Then, I deseeded them by running a finger inside the skins and “popping” out the seed jelly. This wasn’t neccessary, but I wanted to make sure they dried completely in the time that I had available, and I wanted to speed up the process. I then placed a baking rack on top of a cookie sheet (to catch the tomatoes in case any fell through), arranged the sliced tomatoes on the rack, and put the whole thing in the oven.

Even with the tomatoes deseeded, this was an all-day affair. After a few hours, I checked the progress and decided to turn the heat up slightly to 200° F. This doesn’t affect the drying process much, except that you do have to check the tomatoes more often. Eventually the tomatoes began to take on a shrivelled look as the moisture was extracted from them by the oven’s heat.

Once they started looking like this, I checked them more often. (Use your oven’s light feature if possible, since opening the oven frequently stalls the drying process as the heat escapes.) As the tomato slices became dry, pliable, and no longer had any traces of moisure or “stickiness” on them, I removed them from the oven. You want them to be flexible, not stiff and crunchy.

After all of the tomatoes were dried, I placed them in a plastic zipper-lock bag and put them in the fridge. The next morning, I inspected the bag for any signs of fogging, which would indicate that there was still moisture in the tomatoes. (If there had been they would have gone back in the oven for more drying.) There were none, so the bag received a tag with the date. They should keep for a very long time - but as with any preserved food, I will check them for signs of spoilage before using!

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Filed under Food Preservation, Gardening, Recipe, Vegetarian