Oven Dried Tomatoes

Last week I had harvested tomatoes from my "bucket" cherry tomatoes to take to Farmers Market. I had several leftover after market, which is unusual, most of the time I sell out. So I decided to be resourceful!

A few years ago Tim had actually oven roasted some tomatoes and froze them and they were amazing. And I have wanted to do some more ever since. So here are the steps;

3 lbs washed/sliced tomatoes on the baking sheet ready to go into the oven.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes.

1. Acquire tomatoes- I used an assortment of cherry tomatoes that I had in excess--and if you grow cherry tomatoes you always have excess.

2. Set oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit

3. Cover baking sheet with parchment paper--for easy clean up.

4. Place tomatoes on baking sheet, evenly spaced. I sliced the larger tomatoes in half, like the Juliets and the San Marzano's. I left the Sweet 100's and the Sun Gold's whole. I salted the tomatoes with Himalayan Pink Sea Salt.

5. Place baking sheets in oven for 2 to 2.5 hours, remove and using potato masher flatten any tomatoes that have not burst.

Smashing the tomatoes

6. Return baking sheets and continue cooking for 2 to 4 hours.

7. Once tomatoes have sufficiently dried remove from oven and allow to cool

8. Once cooled put into freezer bags- I used my food saver and froze about 1/4 - 1/2 cup in each bag.

9. Now the fun part!! Add to pasta, chicken, spaghetti, pork chops, salisbury steak Your only limited by your imagination.

Dried Tomatoes in Food Saver bags

Tomatoes in the Food Saver bag ready to be sealed