How to Put Up Tomatoes (Freeze Tomatoes the Easy Way)
Tomatoes grow aplenty in the South, so here’s the easiest way to put up tomatoes. Freeze your garden fresh tomatoes to enjoy year-round.
It’s that time of year again (in the South, at least). If you planted tomatoes back at the start of the summer, they are likely coming in by the bucketful right about now. Around this time of year, I feel like I have tomatoes coming out of my ears! Still, I LOVE to grow tomatoes and I know full well this bounty will come in very handy once the growing season is over. As Weezy said in Steel Magnolia’s, “I am an old Southern woman. It is my obligation to wear funny hats and grow tomatoes”.
I actually know very few Southerners who don’t grow tomatoes. They are so easy to grow and produce such remarkably versatile fruit that can be made into any number of dishes and even preserve with ease. So, on the chance that you are also experiencing a bounty of tomatoes, I thought I’d hurry up and get this post to you so that delicious produce doesn’t go to waste.
Preserving tomatoes is so easy though, so you don’t have to wait until you have a bucketful! If you even have one tomato that is quickly ripening with no immediate need for it, use this same method and freeze it to use in a dish on another day. Waste not, want not – and nothing beats a garden-grown fresh tomato.
Of course, you can always can tomatoes, but freezing is just about the easiest (and most inexpensive) way to preserve fresh garden produce so that is the one I’m bringing you today. This method is also more convenient for smaller batches.
Today, I’ll be putting up five heirloom tomatoes from my gardens. They don’t know how lucky they are that I let them turn red! I’ve been frying up green tomatoes left and right here lately but these five managed to grow up despite my fried green tomato love. As I said, this is so easy that you can use this technique to freeze tomatoes whether you have 1 or 100.
Recipe Ingredients
- Tomatoes
- Pot of boiling water
- Freezer bags
How to Put Up Tomatoes
Blanch tomatoes
Our first step is to blanch the tomatoes, so drop them into a pot of boiling water.
Like so.
After a minute or two, the skin will split like this.
Remove them as the skin splits with a slotted spoon and place them in a dish (I use a 9×13 baking dish).
You don’t want to use a plate because when you remove the peels and chop them up there will be a lot of yummy juice involved.
If you have very ripe tomatoes they will take longer to split open. But hang in there, I promise it will happen.
See? Nice and split. Now for the cool part!
Oh, speaking of cool, you’re gonna want to let these cool down a bit. You can either wait half an hour or so or place them immediately in a bowl of ice water to speed up the process.
If you try to peel them now you’ll find they are about as hot as little fireballs!
Then, just take hold of the tomato skin and it pulls right off!
You’ll need to get a knife involved at the top, where the stem was attached. Cut that part off.
I discard all of my skins and tops but they’d be great in a compost bin if you have one.
This is what they look like with the skins removed. You can tell a few of them gave up the ghost rather quickly.
I like it when things obey me, even if it is just a vegetable. We gotta take our little triumphs where we can get them!
Now I chop each one up but you can leave them whole if you prefer.
They are slippery so be careful.
Here they are, all ready to be bagged ( and all).
Freeze tomatoes
I like to write on my bag the date and where they came from.
If your grandmother sent the tomatoes to you, it’s always nice to be able to call and say, “We had the most delicious stew made with your tomatoes today”.
Fill your bag up, get out as much air as you can, and freeze! It’s best to freeze them flat as they’ll retain that shape.
They are now ready to be used in sauces, stews, and anything else you can dream up.
There is NOTHING like your own fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter (or any other time of year for that matter).
Storage
Frozen tomatoes will retain their flavor for up to 12 months. Thaw them in the fridge before using them.
Recipe FAQs
What kind of recipes can I use with my freezer tomatoes?
The options are basically endless, but here are some suggestions:
- Stews: smoked sausage and beef stew, slow cooker beef stew, and famous Alabama camp stew.
- Use them for tomato sauce, tomato salsa, or tomato puree, like my super easy spaghetti sauce.
- Soups: tomato basil soup and pizza soup.
- Crockpot chili
- Easy weeknight suppers instead of canned diced tomatoes, like slow cooker sloppy joes, crockpot swiss steak, and skillet lasagna.
What type of tomatoes can you freeze?
This method for freezing tomatoes works for all types of tomatoes, like Roma tomatoes (also known as plum tomatoes), heirloom tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes. If you use the latter, you can keep the skins on as long as you don’t mind the skins being in whatever you dish you make with them later.
Ingredients
- fresh tomatoes
- boiling water
Instructions
Blanch Tomatoes
- To blanch the tomatoes, drop them into a pot of boiling water. After a minute or two, the skin will split. Remove them as the skin splits with a slotted spoon and place them in a dish (I use a 9x13 baking dish).fresh tomatoes, boiling water
- Cool these down before moving on to the next step. You can either wait half an hour or so or place them immediately in a bowl of ice water to speed up the process.
Cut Up Tomatoes
- Once cooled, take hold of the tomato skin and it pulls right off! You'll need to get a knife involved at the top, where the stem was attached. Cut that part off. Now I chop each one up but you can leave them whole if you prefer.
Freeze Tomatoes
- Fill your freezer bags up (getting out as much air as you can), date them, and freeze! It's best to freeze them flat as they'll retain that shape. Thaw in the fridge overnight before using in your next soup, stew, or supper.
You may also want to check out these posts:
Canning Tomatoes (Complete Video)
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Just put up my first bags of beautiful tomatoes from my garden. Easy, loved the pics to show how, in addition to the text. Merci beaucoup!
I always just wash and toss in a ziploc bag and keep adding more until full. then I just pull out what I need for recipes.
Putting up tomatoes is my favorite thing to do, but do them like my daddy showed me and altho it takes longer, it is a time for me to stop and think and enjoy things gone by. I peel my tomatoes, put them in a large dishpan on the stove, scald the jars and put one tsp of salt in the bottom, and have my lids in hot water waiting to use. Once the tomatoes come to a boil, I let them boil for about 10 ten minutes, fill the jars quickly, wipe around the lid area to make sure there is nothing there and seal them. The tomatoes are boiling as I put them in the jars and they will seal very well. I always enjoy doing them like this as it makes me feel close to my daddy again and he has been gone for many years.
Thanks for the refresher course! My mother (who is no longer living) told me how to do my tomatoes this way, but I wasn’t sure if I was remembering right. I like to put them up this way and then use them in the middle of winter for home made soup! Yum!
Thank you!
Hi Christy ~ Love this site. I have a quick question. I recently purchased a Foodsaver and was wondering if you think there’s any advantage of vacuum sealing the tomatoes? Or should I just put them in freezer bags? Thanks for your time.
This is super exciting!! Our tomatoes have just started coming on…none are big enough for fried green tomatoes yet but getting close! (fried green tomatoes is how I found Southern Plate) I can’t wait to use this once the bounty starts!
* that last sentence should read “IN” (not over) the sterilized jar or bag…..