If you are growing tomatoes at home, or even if you have access to fresh tomatoes in abundance from another source, you might want to store them for use during the winter months when tomatoes are scarce and expensive. There is a limit, after all, to how many tomatoes your family can consume each week, so why not keep them for later use?
You can make sauces and freeze those, or make chutney, ketchup or other preserves, but have you thought of freezing tomatoes? In this compact little video (3:35) Rita Heikenfeld of AboutEating.com discusses ways to freeze tomatoes.
Traditionally, says Rita, people have blanched tomatoes before chopping and freezing them. Blanching means they have placed them in hot water and then pulled off the skins. Common wisdom has it that this needs to be done so that the enzymes in the skin are removed, inhibiting the tomato from ripening further.
Without saying it in so many words, Rita says this is hogwash. You can freeze regular size tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and pear tomatoes (the canning kind) whole just as they are, skin and all. When you are ready to use them just run the frozen tomatoes under tepid water and the skins will come away easily. Chop up the tomatoes and add to soups, sauces, etc. It’s a great time and energy saving tip.
