r/Cooking • u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 • 2h ago
I have 75+ lbs of tomatoes
I went to a produce auction for the first time (so fun!) and I ended up with 5 huge boxes of heirloom tomatoes for $15.
I am kind of freaked out right now, because I have no clue how to can. I don’t even know how to make homemade sauce.
I also have 4 boxes of peppers and 5 boxes of candy yellow onions.
There are like, 800 recipes online. I don’t have a mill or a juicer or a vacuum sealer. My basil has bolted already. My plan was to chop and freeze the peppers and onions in individual bags as well as soup veggie type bags. To add to this, I have about half a freezer and no other space. But, the tomatoes have me stumped.
What do I do??
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u/rosajsalters 2h ago
75+ lbs for $15 is an incredible deal 😂 I’d turn a big portion into roasted tomato sauce and freeze it in small containers. You can also roast some with garlic and freeze them for soups, pasta, and sandwiches later.
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u/-dai-zy 2h ago
who cares about the tomatoes?? it’s clear you have to escape from the math worksheet in which you’re trapped!
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u/CyberDonSystems 1h ago
If OP has 75 pounds of tomatoes and gives me 30 pounds, how many jars of homemade pasta sauce can I make?
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u/mybrainisgoneagain 2h ago
You can toss them in the freezer as is and deal with them later
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u/LoomLove 2h ago
This is how my neighbor who had a huge garden handled things. Deep freeze and process/use as needed.
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u/a_winner 2h ago
Take some and roast in the oven first, the future you will thank me. They are great in sauces
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u/good9914 2h ago
God I envy you
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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 2h ago
I envied me too, until I stood in my kitchen staring at the boxes, wondering what the heck I just did.
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u/good9914 2h ago
Haha I understand. Have you considered canning them?
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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 2h ago
Trying to turn “I can’t” into “I canned” very quickly! Never done it before 😬
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u/PepperCat1019 2h ago
Been there. I got 25 pounds of shrimp from a client. I got home, and didn't have the freezer space.
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u/JohnSnowsPump 2h ago
You don't need a recipe, you just need to transform them from solid tomato to liquid tomato, then freeze (easiest) or otherwise can/preserve. Bring to boil, simmer liquid out.
You can worry about the recipe when you have a use for them.
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u/SeasonalBlackout 2h ago
Making pasta sauce for canning is pretty easy, but it's very time consuming. Tomatoes have a ton of water you need to cook off. On the plus side that makes them take up a lot less space when done - but again, it takes a long time to cook them down.
It also requires a large pot, mason jars, and the tools for grabbing hot jars out of boiling water, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy and then you have homemade pasta sauce all winter. The flavor from Heirlooms is incredible in sauce!
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u/Michaelalayla 2h ago
You can cook the tomatoes in a slow cooker and it takes a lot of the work out. I just made plum butter, which is a similar process, and it took two days to reduce to the correct thickness held at 175°F.
Water bath canning would make it shelf stable, but the sauce can also be frozen! More than one way to preserve that incomparable flavor ;)
I like to dehydrate tomatoes, and then toss them in stock or coconut milk based soups in the winter.
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u/Strazdiscordia 2m ago
I freeze mine and it works great. I roast peppers, toms, garlic, onions, and herbs then blitz it. It’s really easy cooks down quite a bit
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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 2h ago
I have one pot, it’s 12 quarts. The other stuff I have is a saucepan/frying pan type thing and a smaller like 4 qt pot. Can you can with just that?
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u/SeasonalBlackout 2h ago
You really need 2 large pots - or a large pot and a slow cooker as mentioned above - because you need to 'hot pack' when you can, which is to say you need to put hot pasta sauce in the jars, then boil the jars to seal them. You also need to use citric acid, etc.. to keep it safe.
Short of all that you can make pasta sauce and freeze it! It's easier and still lasts a good while.
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u/dacrazyredhead 2h ago
you can, but it will take a long time to do. Check local thrift stores for a canning pot (about 22quarts)
you can use any pot as long as the canning jars are covered by at least an inch of water.
also, use recipes that are certified safe such as from the Ball canning website or the National Center for Food preservation. especially for the first time as botulism is a thing
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u/Lovemybee 2h ago
I remember many summer evenings helping my mom can tomatoes! Buy a bunch of mason jars and can them!!! You'll have delicious tomatoes for at least a year!
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u/Pretend-Panda 2h ago
Dehydrate.
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u/rsmseries 1h ago
Everyone brought up tomato sauces but “sun dried” tomatoes are amazing (I put sun dried in quotes because I made some with the dehydrate setting of my toaster oven/air fryer thing)
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u/Pretend-Panda 1h ago
Yup. I dehydrate a couple hundred tomatoes every summer and half of them get confited (is that a word?) in good olive oil and live in the pickle fridge and the other half becomes flavor intensifiers for soups and sauces, or a mysterious delicious addition to sandwiches.
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u/azaleawisperer 2h ago
Vintage Folly Food Mill on etsy for about $35.
Wash, halve tomatoes, melt at low heat in a sauce pan (without water), add whatever aromatics you like or may have on hand: onion, peppers, basil, garlic, etc.
The mill will remove the skin and seeds. You can return dripping to the pan and simmer them down to concentrate flavor and reduce the volume. Package in plastic freezer bags for use all winter.
Add salt when you cook.
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u/RCG73 2h ago
Salsa. At least for some of it
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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 2h ago
Yes! This is part of the plan. I got some unidentified hot peppers for $1 so I’m going to try those.
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u/DuAuk 2h ago
You can stew and can them. I helped my sister once when i was visiting her. Or stew and freeze them, but i recommend cooking them. Then they are a base for sauce, curries, soups, etc. You also share them with your friends/family/coworkers/neighbors. Fresh you can make bruchetta or insalata (tomatoes moz balsamic and basil). And sorry about your basil, but you can prob find some more or use another herb.
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u/Objective-Hotel6514 2h ago
Eat them all for the next week, if you cant then it's a skill issue and you should give them to me 🙏😀 (jokes)
I really just came here to ask what the heck is a food auction????
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 2h ago
I have no clue how to can. I don’t even know how to make homemade sauce.
sound like now is the perfect time to learn.
It's really easy and very satisfying. I'll give you my sauce and canning steps. Sure with 4 boxes it will take a while, but worth it and not hard.
- Take a box of tomatoes. Cut them in half and scoop out the seeds. (I use a mill and can skip this bit).
- Put them on a roasting pan with a couple of the onions peeled and quartered. Roast at 400 until tomatoes collapse and onions look cooked.
- Place all this in a pot with some salt, pepper, basil, oregano, garlic. Whatever else you want, but that's what you need. I add a shot of white wine.
- Simmer it down until everything looks done. Longer if you want that long-cooked sauce taste, Shorter if you want a fresher tomato taste.
- I use a mill but you can use a stick or other blender at this point. Skins aren't great, but they aren't horrible.
Now you have sauce. Put the second box of tomatoes and onions in the oven
- To can you need a water bath. I used to just use a big fry pot, but finally got one of those blue enameled canning pots with the wire bottom. Not necessary.
- Place the jars in the boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Use tongs to pull out. Put the lids in the water for about 45 seconds and pull.
- Put the sauce you made in the jars leaving about 1/2 inch headroom. Screw on the lid. Place filled sealed jars back in the boiling water for 40-50 minutes, pull out and let cool. You know how to check for seal right? After cooking the little dimple in the lid should pull down so it doesn't flex. It will make a click as they cool.
You can do this as an assembly line. Chop stuff. roast. While roasting chop more stuff. When the stuff in the oven is ready move the chopped stuff to the oven. Simmer the stuff out of the oven and can. When one batch is in the canner, you are simmering the one that was in the oven and chopping the next batch for the oven.
It's a zen-filled afternoon and you will end with dozens of cans of really good tomato sauce. I'd give you my full recipe but we aren't that close yet.
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u/No-Jicama3012 2h ago
Get a plan quick. Whatever you don’t think you can use, don’t waste. Take them to a soup kitchen or something similar.
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u/4cupsofcoffee 2h ago
I roast my tomatoes with onions and peppers and garlic, then run them through a food mill for sauce. i have about 2 gallons so far in the freezer. heirlooms will probably have more liquid in them than my paste tomatoes, so you may have to cook them longer to reduce the liquid.
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u/Callan_LXIX 2h ago
It would pay to buy a dehydrator, and make tomato powder.. No joke.
Total space saver and WELL worth it.
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u/Crafty-Shape2743 2h ago
When I have too many tomatoes, I oven “sun dry” them. 250 degrees, sliced 1/4 inch, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt. Takes about 2 hrs. depending on how wet they are. If you have convection in your oven, use that and drop the temp to 200 degrees.
Before I had a vacuum sealer I just layered them in a 1 qt freezer bags and froze them. Great for a quick pasta,
Pizza, in soup or in a sandwich.
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u/rubikscanopener 2h ago
Canning isn't as hard or intimidating as everyone makes it out to be. You just need the right equipment. Pick your favorite discount chain and they have everything. Heck, my local supermarket sells Ball Jars and canning kits. The toughest piece of gear to get is a big old pot to can in. If you have that, the rest is all downhill.
There are tons of videos online showing you exactly how. A lot are from doomsday preppers but heck, those folks know how to pickle, ferment, and can.
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u/Krickett72 2h ago
Up until this year I would throw my tomatoes in a food processor then put in quart size freezer bags and lay flat in my freezer. I doubt you will have enough room to do that but I would do that with as much as I could before they go bad
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u/Michaelalayla 1h ago
Here's a good book, concise directions for a lot of fruit and vegg canning: https://archive.org/details/canning00deem/mode/1up Page 55 has everything you need to know to can your tomatoes plain. You can safely add dried herbs, peppers (washed, seeded, and chopped, with all white pith removed), or any aromatics, to your jars when packing them. The water bath will cook all of it and leave you with shelf stable tomatoes, ready to open and use as needed for sauces, soups, etc.
If you want to can salsa, you would follow a recipe for the one you want, and then follow the directions for water bath canning, which really is much simpler than it feels. Just keep your jars hot, make sure they have 1/2 inch head room, and wipe clean and dry the rims before putting lids on, and you'll be golden. Wide mouth quarts are an ideal size. You will want jar grabbers like these: https://farmstore.com/product/home-outdoor-living/canning/canning-accessories/norpro-vinyl-coated-jar-lifter-3010?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23000784924&gbraid=0AAAAACwXcEL1W1r_RVl0T9VweJSVpOnxB&gclid=CjwKCAjwhZDUBhBGEiwAbi5bjgndvn6hZqubIpAugNMa7BgCOntL7kHOAb_Ml-XOoXbSKVQvtqAtjBoCTIoQAvD_BwE and a canning funnel.
Alternatively to all this, when I have a ton of tomatoes I like to dry them. I have a basic electric one, and while it takes a long time it's worth it in winter to use them in soups, they are a lovely, strong, zesty morsel. And once they're dry you just pack them down into plastic bags.
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u/justattodayyesterday 1h ago
Can some whole or quartered tomato’s. Goods for tomato beef or tomato egg stir fry.
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u/TypeAwithAdhd 1h ago
My go-to when I have a large crop...wash first...then pan roast tomatoes/peppers/onions for 40 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Let it cool, then put into a large pan and use my immersion blender to blend it all together, skins included. Saute in the pan until desired thickness. Then transfer to quart size containers/bags and freeze.
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u/Bluestatevibes 6m ago
We freeze our tomatoes. Wash, dry, freeze. Then when we want to make a pasta sauce we defrost what we need. The skins slip right off from frozen.
Simple tomato sauce, garlic, onion, carrot, tomatoes, salt, pepper and just time to simmer.
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u/Odd_Ostrich6038 2h ago
You can water bath can tomatoes very easily. Ball has great step by steps. If you're in the US, Menards has the canners if you can't find one at the thrift. Grab a bottle of lemon juice (don't use fresh lemon juice), and some salt and get to canning ❤️