I debated whether or not to make this a whole blog post. Because the answer to “How to freeze whole tomatoes” basically boils down to this: put them in the freezer.

But this was such a mind-blowing, revolutionary concept when I first heard it, that I just had to share.

Mother Knows Best

Last year we had a CSA membership, which was a fantastic experience. It’s like boarding a veggie train that slowly picks up speed over the course of the summer, until you are barreling along at full blast, eating and preserving veggies as fast as you can.

So at some point during that journey I was drowning in beautiful, delicious heirloom tomatoes. I had made as much pasta sauce and tomato soup as a mother of three-children-three-and-under can make. But I couldn’t bear to see any of those beauties go to waste.

My own mother grows and processes tomatoes by the hundreds. Seriously. So naturally I was talking to her about my tomato situation, and she mentioned that you can freeze the tomatoes whole.

Mind. Blown.

I was so stuck in the pasta sauce mentality that it had never occurred to me to question my paradigm. But indeed, you can simply put whole tomatoes in the freezer!

How to Freeze Them & How to Use Them

To freeze:

Wash the tomato and cut out the stem and any bad spots. Throw it in a freezer bag.

As a good blogger, I should remind you to label and date the bag. But as a Christian woman, I must be honest and say I haven’t done this with my tomatoes. It’s obvious what they are, and I generally use them fast enough I’m not worried about the date. So you do you on this one.

One of the great benefits of freezing tomatoes this way is that you can add more to the bag as you get them. This year I grew my own tomatoes, and often it was a slow trickle as they ripened. Since I didn’t have enough to make a big batch of sauce or soup, if I didn’t use them fresh, I would just throw them in the freezer a couple at a time.

To use:

Whole frozen tomatoes make a great substitute for canned tomatoes in recipes. They do get soggy when they thaw, so I wouldn’t try to use them in place of fresh tomatoes in salads, on sandwiches, etc. But they are perfect in any cooked dish!

I found that one large heirloom or beefsteak-type tomato is roughly equivalent to one, 15 oz can of tomatoes. If you have small to medium sized tomatoes, I would use two of them in place of one can.

Let the tomato thaw slightly before using. If, like me, you often don’t prepare ahead of time for this step, you can do it gently on a defrost setting in the microwave, or place the tomato in a baggie and submerge in warm water for a few minutes. Otherwise, 15-30 minutes at room temperature should suffice. But don’t thaw it completely! You want it soft enough to roughly chop with a large knife, but not so squishy that all the juice goes everywhere as you’re trying to cut it. Mine are generally in a mostly-frozen state when I chop them.

Chop the tomato into bite size pieces, and add to whatever dish you are making!

Looking for more ways to make the most out of your fall produce? Check out last week’s post about using regular pumpkins for baking!