Need a way to use a BUNCH of tomatoes? Dehydrated pizza sauce.

[mixxedbagg]

I thought I'd share this tip that worked AWESOME this year. The small garden I had this summer produced WAY more roma tomatoes than we could ever use. On top of that, a few people gave us tomatoes. (I would assume that any type of tomato would work for this, BTW.) We had sacks of tomatoes all over. At first, I tried making a bunch of pizza sauce, cooking it down, and freezing it, but it was really time consuming, takes up a lot of space, and was overall inconvenience. Then, I tried this and it worked GREAT.

After washing a pile of ripe tomatoes, I cut each one in half or whatever size I needed to get them to fit on the dehydrator racks. (I did not peel or deseed them.) I loaded the dehydrator and dried all of the tomatoes thoroughly. (Which, I had no idea that dried romas are actually pretty tasty as-is.) As it happened, I also had some garlic cloves from the farmer's market and some basil and rosemary we grew on the window sill, so I dried a healthy amount of that along with the tomatoes. Smelled GREAT in the house.

After everything was completely dried, I tossed the whole works in the blender, added some oregano and black pepper and ran the blender until I had powder. Dumped this into a ziploc freezer bag and stuck it in the freezer. I made subsequent batches of the same mixture and put them right in the same freezer bag. Before long, I had a pretty large bag of powdered sauce mix with VERY little effort.

When I want to use the sauce, I just open the ziploc, scoop out what I need into a dish and put the rest back. I add a dab of olive oil (tasty and healthy) to the powder, a little water to the consistency I want (go slow...it takes a minute for the powder to fully rehydrate) and because I like a sweet sauce and raw tomato powder has a slight bitter/acid taste, I would also stir in <1 teaspoon of sugar (optional). The results are delicious. (If you remember the "Edge" or "Sicilian" pizzas from Pizza Hut, the flavor is reminiscent of this type of sauce, only livelier flavor because the tomatoes were fresh and homegrown--the texture is much better than canned sauces as well.) Spread on the crust and go! Depending on how you mix it and how saucy you like your pies, roughly 3 tablespoons of powder will do a 12" pizza.

Advantages (besides finding a good, healthy use for a lot of tomatoes)

- I control the thickness and strength of the sauce each batch by the ratio of powder to water and olive oil.

- Stores easily forever and takes up little space.

- I can easily have as much or little sauce as I need at the time immediately at the ready. I would often just take a tortilla or flat bread and just mix up a spoonful of powder in a few seconds, add some cheese, and stick it in the microwave or oven for a quickie single-serve pizza. I never have a partial jar or can of sauce like I would if I wanted to make a small pizza with storebought stuff.

- You don't have to use the tomato/seasoning powder for just pizza. In a pinch, the powder can be added to chili or other soup dishes to thicken them up and add a nice tomato flavor.

Try filling your dehydrator once with next year's tomatoes for a trial batch and see if you aren't hooked.

[KEN W]

Sounds like a good idea.I also had a lot of tomatoes.I dried a bunch of them,but never thought of making a pizza powder.

Can you give me some idea of the ratio of oregano,basil and rosemary to dried tomatoes you use?

[Gordie]

bet that would make a great condensed tomatoe juice as well thanks for the tip

[lovebigbluegills]

Having never used a dehydrator, how long does it take with an average dehydrator to properly dry a batch of tomatoes?

[mixxedbagg]

It might be good for juice too....I never thought of that.

Regarding the seasonings, I usually just go by gut feel on things like that. Plus, there are bunch of kinds of garlic, basil, and rosemary out there of varying strengths and personal taste varies. So, I might not be able to help much, but I'll say this:

- You should be able to smell the herbs and garlic a little in the mix. You should also be able to smell that stuff in the dehydrator.

- I have one of those cheapo round 5-level tray dehydrators. If I filled the entire dehydrator with tomatoes in close proximity, I usually had about a third of a bulb of garlic (a couple of healthy cloves), and maybe a just under a quarter of one of the trays with basil and rosemary. (I never took enough basil or rosemary to kill the small plants I had on the sill??) I just shook in oregano (didn't have any fresh stuff) until it looked good. By the way, you have to cut garlic cloves in halves or quarters to dehydrate them, otherwise they take much longer than the tomatoes because the moisture can't escape.

Sorry....I never measure anything, but hopefully that helps a little. *shrug*

[Jim Almquist]

I think I finally have found a reason for a dehydrator. Now I just have to get a big ole batch of tomatoes

[mixxedbagg]

Quote:

Having never used a dehydrator, how long does it take with an average dehydrator to properly dry a batch of tomatoes?

Romas are small, but most of them were done overnight. A few would be stragglers, so I would go 24 hours to get them across the board. When you're powdering, the drier the better--though a little moisture won't hurt if you're storing the powder in the freezer. I actually had a couple of tomatoes, inexplicably, that didn't dry all the way even after 24 hours--so I just popped those as snacks while I was making the sauce. Other dehydrators or other ways of cutting tomatoes might produce different results.

[mixxedbagg]

Quote:

I think I finally have found a reason for a dehydrator. Now I just have to get a big ole batch of tomatoes

Yeah...I'll bet someone more creative than me could think of other vegetables and herbs to try in the sauce (peppers, carrots, onions, etc) or make a good tomato soup concentrate.

All I know is that it seems like every time my garden produces a bunch of tomatoes, everyone else tries to give me a paper bag full of them. Now I'll say "Yes" to everyone with tomatoes to get rid of. I might even kick a little sauce mix back their way if I'm feeling generous.

[Jim Almquist]

My plan was to make the sauce and then use my vacuum sealer to seal up the quart jars before freezing but I like your idea because it will take up less space to accomplish the same thing.

[KEN W]

Thanks