If you love to grow tomatoes, you probably store them in the freezer after harvesting them. These are the best tips for cooking with frozen tomatoes.
Growing tomatoes on your balcony, in your backyard, or on a farm is a fantastic way to obtain healthy food. After you harvest your tomatoes in the fall, you probably place any leftovers in the freezer for the winter. However, if you want to enjoy your tomatoes during winter, you need to learn how to cook with frozen tomatoes. With that in mind, here are the best tips for cooking with frozen tomatoes.
Store Your Frozen Tomatoes the Right Way
Before you can start cooking, you need to store your tomatoes after harvesting them. Learning how to properly store tomatoes during the winter is essential for preparing them in your kitchen—if your batch goes bad, you won’t have anything to cook with. You can always run to the store to grab some tomatoes, but there’s something about cooking food you’ve grown yourself that makes it taste that much better.
Choose What You Want to Make
The first thing you need to do before cooking with frozen tomatoes is to choose what you want to make. Depending on which meal you want to cook, there will be differing methods for preparing the tomatoes. For instance, if you’re going to make a delicious tomato sauce for your chicken Parmesan, you need to peel the skin off each tomato before thawing the peeled tomatoes and smashing them into a sauce. Also, picking out a meal ahead of time will allow you to gather the other ingredients the recipe calls for so that you won’t be stuck with only the tomatoes if you decide to cook something on the fly.
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Spice Things Up—But Not Too Much
Cooking tomatoes in a pan will allow their juices to flow, and adding spices can make them taste that much better. However, when you’re seasoning your tomato sauce, be sure to use a light amount of salt or pepper, because as the moisture from the juices evaporates, your sauce will thicken and the flavors become more intense. In short, a little bit goes a long way, so you don’t want to overdo it with whatever you add to your sauce.
Overall, tomatoes including frozen tomatoes are some of the most versatile foods you can cook with, and they’re easy to grow yourself. Now that you know a few of the best tips for cooking with frozen tomatoes, you can start making tasty tomato dishes for any occasion!
