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How to freeze tomatoes for the winter: delicious harvesting in different recipes

You can freeze tomatoes in the winter in several ways: they are well stored both in whole form and in slices, rings, in the form of mashed potatoes and even juice. An interesting idea is to prepare semi-finished products from whole tomatoes stuffed with various fillings. Tomatoes allow you to experiment, especially if the farm has a modern freezer.

Selection of tomatoes and subtleties of freezing

They store any kind of tomato in ice: red, yellow, cherry, etc. Do not freeze only green tomatoes: they have a lot of solanine, and they are suitable only for canning. Ripe tomatoes should be whole, without mold spots or traces of pests. Overripe tomatoes will not be preserved well. Fleshy varieties with dense rather than watery pulp are preferred.

Frozen tomatoes

What to cook
Pieces of salad are not always obtained from thawed tomatoes, it all depends on the temperature and quality of the freezer. But you can always save this way for dressing for soup, slices for stew, pizza rings and meat in French.

The shelf life of frozen tomatoes at standard temperature settings is 10-12 months, but the longer the shelf life, the less nutrients remain.

The benefits of freezing:

  • freezing tomatoes will save your budget, since winter products are many times more expensive;
  • harvesting will be much more useful than greenhouse tomatoes, which have almost no taste - with proper freezing, all vitamins will remain in the fruits, they will remain just as tasty and aromatic;
  • you don’t have to use sugar, salt, brines, etc. to save in the freezer;
  • Another advantage is time saving. Tomato harvests quickly thaw and go on cooking a variety of dishes.

Of the minuses - frozen tomato loses shape. Most often in the future such a product goes to dishes with heat treatment.

Whole freeze

It is easiest to freeze whole tomatoes. They will take up a little more space, but the time for preparation will take a minimum.

Whole tomato freezing

Whole tomatoes are frozen in the following way:

  1. Rinse the fruits and dry well.
  2. Arrange them in batches in packages.
  3. It is not necessary to freeze additionally, as a dense skin will not allow the fruits to stick together.
  4. Tie the bags firmly and store.
  5. Cherry tomatoes are even easier to store whole. Subtlety - they are recommended to be slightly pricked so that the skin does not go cracked.

Tip
If you grow tomatoes in your area, then pick the fruits immediately before freezing. So they will retain much more vitamins.

Use turbofreezing so that the fruit does not harden gradually from the edge to the center, but immediately and completely. It is the shock mode that allows you to save tomatoes in their original form.

Rings

The method, or rather the form of freezing tomatoes is selected depending on further goals. Some recipes involve the use of sliced ​​tomatoes. These are different types of pizza, puff casseroles, moussaka, meat in French.

Ring freezing tomatoes

How to freeze rings:

  1. From washed and dried fruits, you need to cut off the most pointed parts.
  2. Carefully cut the fruit with rings about 0.5 cm thick. Use a sharp knife to prevent damage to the pulp.
  3. Rings need a separate freeze, otherwise their flesh will stick together, and instead of circles you will get an unformed mass. Arrange the tomatoes on a flat dish with cling film and leave in the freezer for several hours.
  4. Fold completely hardened circles in stacks and place in bags or containers. Try to form several convenient portions so that each of them goes to one dish.

purityis.decorexpro.com/en/ magazine recalls: sign containers and packages to identify the product lying there. Designate the expiration date, this will help not to forget to use freezing in a timely manner. Delay is not allowed, it is fraught with food poisoning.

Tip
Peeling tomato pizza circles is a matter of taste. Someone quite likes the elastic parts, they allow the pulp not to spread during baking.

In pieces

Pieces of tomatoes are frozen without skins, as they usually go to dishes where only pulp is needed. It is very difficult to peel a raw tomato, but after scalding it quickly disappears. Just hold the fruit for a couple of minutes in boiling water, cool slightly and pick up the shell.

Now that the tomatoes are peeled, cut them into convenient pieces: slices, cubes, straws, etc.

Frozen Tomatoes Sliced

The cut will have to be frozen, as well as the circles in the recipe above. After that, they are ready to go to portioned packets and go for long-term storage.

Keep only well-tied bags and closed containers in the freezer. Tomatoes can become damp and saturated with extraneous odors, which means they will become completely tasteless.

Tomato puree and juice

Tomato puree in the form of freezing does not require any additives. This method will 100% save the natural taste of the product. Another advantage - mashed freezing fits all varieties, even the juiciest ones.

Frozen Smoothie Tomatoes

Tomato puree recipe in the freezer:

  1. Rinse the tomatoes and scald with boiling water, remove the peel.
  2. Slightly chop the fruits and send to a blender or twist in a meat grinder.
  3. For a uniform consistency, if desired, rub the pulp through a sieve.
  4. Put mashed potatoes in portions into containers, cups, trays can be used to freeze ice.
  5. Store mashed potatoes in containers or with frozen blocks. After the mass freezes, remove everything from the molds and pour into a common package.

Tomato juice is frozen in the same way as mashed potatoes, only to get it you need a juicer.

Tip
Remember to tighten the mashed cups with cling film or place in a bag.

Tomato freezing in ice molds

Stuffed tomatoes

Only dense fruits are suitable for this method, since their walls must withstand the filling. Cut off the top of the tomato, remove the pulp with a spoon, leaving it at the edges so that the walls are not too thin.

How to fill a vegetable pot:

  • minced meat;
  • minced meat with boiled rice until half cooked;
  • rice with mushrooms;
  • vegetable mixture with herbs.

Stuffed tomatoes should be sent to cooking for 2-3 months.

Stuffed tomatoes

Defrost rules

Repeated freezing is prohibited: this will ruin the tomatoes. Make sure that there are no temperature differences in the freezer.

To add slices to the salad, you do not need to wait until the defrost is complete. The same goes for whole fruits. Keep them first in the refrigerator, and then 15 minutes warm and chop.

Most often, after thawing, heat treatment follows - cooking, stewing, baking and roasting. For this, the shape of the tomato slices is not so important, except that the integrity of the tomato rings should be preserved. Do not throw tomatoes into boiling water as soon as you take them out of the chamber. Let them thaw a little.

Use tomato slices in a wide variety of dishes. Whole fruits can be sliced ​​and sent to the salad, stews, goulash are obtained from the pieces, they are put in soup, scrambled eggs, various casseroles like lasagna. It is delicious to season meat and fish soups with tomato puree. Home freezing is several times cheaper, more convenient and tastier than what shops offer us in winter.

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