what can I use frozen tomatoes for?

[Grumpy's Gal]

Let me say, we don't need any salsa! We are stocked up!

We were given bags and bags of frozen tomatoes. Can someone tell me what I can make with these? I need some ideas.

And if anyone has a good recipe for spg sauce, please, do tell!

 

[graceandemmasmom]

I use frozen tomatoes for chili, sausage and peppers, goulash, and just added some to spaghetti sauce.

 

[mousecraszy]

Same as ablve poster but I'll also add a can to the Hamburger Helper mixes that are 'tomatoey-based'. My family really enjoys that added flavor. We use tomatoes all the time, full of vitamins and antioxidants.

 

[Mkaz]

I am not sure these would work for you, but this is what we do with our tomatoes from the garden.

Sauce (dh makes it so I don't have a recipe)
Ketchup (we use a mix called Mrs. Wages)
Soup

We may try to make some salsa this year. It depends on how our harvest is. We are hoping for a good one.

 

[momofpirates]

We use them to make a vegetable side dish. My grandma always cut the left over corn off the cob and would add it to fresh tomatoes. She'd heat them together in a sauce pan and add a pinch of sugar. My kids love corn and tomatoes! It sounds strange, but it's pretty good and a great way to use up left over corn.

 

[Chicago526]

I made fresh tomatoes into sauce last year and froze it for later use, I don't see why you couldn't take frozen tomatos and turn them into sauce as well, or like other said, use the whole tomatoes to add to canned or jar tomato sauce. I do that myself, when I make pasta sauce or chili, I add a can of diced tomatos for texture and flavor.

 

[schoen]

I can tomatoes and use them all year! Spaghetti sauce, lasagna, goulash, vegetable soup are just a few things I used them for. They are a staple pantry item in our house. We use three or four quarts a week in the winter.

 

[vellamint]

I didnt know you could even freeze tomatos!!

I usually have an overabundance of cherry tomatos in the summer....I can just throw them in a freezer bag and freeze them? and then defrost and throw in a salad?

 

[mickeyfan2]

Anything that uses cooked tomatoes. I find that they are very watery and need to be boiled down. I get around that by adding a can of tomato paste.

I didnt know you could even freeze tomatos!!

I usually have an overabundance of cherry tomatos in the summer....I can just throw them in a freezer bag and freeze them? and then defrost and throw in a salad?

No. They can only be used to cook with.

I freeze the larger tomatoes. I remove the stem and then freeze. If you want to remove the skin, when you take them out of the freeze run them under hot water and it just rolls off. I tend to just use it with the skin. I like the texture of the skin in my sauce.

 

[Chereya]

I thought someone would have suggested stew before me! Traditional beef stew or stewed beef & tomato are two. I also like to whip up a pasta sauce on a whim with whatever I have on hand. It doesn't have to be tomato based to utilize tomato. I've done garlic & olive oil based sauces with any combination of shrimp, tomato, asparagus, spinach, zucchini, onion, bell peppers, etc. You could also do the same kind of sauteed veggies with a cream sauce - just toss in some whole milk with a 1/2 teaspoon of cornstarch mixed in.

 

[swilshire]

I didnt know you could even freeze tomatos!!

I usually have an overabundance of cherry tomatos in the summer....I can just throw them in a freezer bag and freeze them? and then defrost and throw in a salad?

Cherry tomatos might be too much work and I don't think you'd like the texture in a regular salad. They'd be fine for a pasta salad or something like that.

We usually blanch and peel the regular tomatos before freezing them. We use them for anything we would used canned tomatos for.

We also can a lot of tomatos, but freezing is much quicker if you have the room. It's great when you just have a few extra and don't want to get all the canning gear out.

Sheila

 

[sunnyday123]

Go to CookingLight.Com, they have a recipie that I have used for a few years that is wonderful!! You can experiment with it and tweak it to your liking.

It's called Marinara Magnifica, and I'm sure you could use your tomatoes in place of the one's it calls for. I'll try to paste it here.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 cups chopped onion (about 3 medium)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
6 garlic cloves, crushed
2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes, undrained
2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste


Preparation
Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion and sugar. Cook 30 minutes or until golden, stirring occasionally. Stir in wine; cook 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
Yield
9 cups (serving size: 1 cup)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 169(20% from fat); FAT 3.8g (sat 0.5g,mono 2.3g,poly 0.6g); PROTEIN 5.3g; CHOLESTEROL 0.0mg; CALCIUM 131mg; SODIUM 960mg; FIBER 6.5g; IRON 2.9mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.9g



Cooking Light, AUGUST 2004

 

[momof296&02]

I've never used frozen tomaoes for the quick & easy recipe below but it's worth a shot. I've also never measured- I go through many spoons tasting it!


Put the following in a blender-
Cut up tomatoes (I have used every kind imagineable)
add some olive oil (in a pinch i've used veg & canola oil)
Add basil ( I have only used fresh or fresh/frozen)
salt & peeper to taste
grated cheese (i use pecorino romano or parmesean)
2-3 cloves of garlic

Blend it up!

I taste it & sometimes i have to add a something so it's to my liking.

I pour it over Linguine or Angel Hair pasta.

This is a quick meal that EVERYONE in my home will eat.

 

[ladysoleil]

Anything you'd use canned tomatoes for should taste just fine.

I like to make a simple red bean and rice side dish with tomatoes. It doesn't have a recipe, basically you saute a small onion and some chopped garlic to in a saucepan, add in a can or two of red beans and an equal amount of tomatoes and let simmer until hot, then toss with a couple of cups of cooked white or brown rice. Add Tabasco or your favorite hot sauce to perk up the flavor a bit. This is good with tacos, enchiladas and simple meat dishes.

Speaking of tacos, I always add chopped tomatoes to my taco meat (we use turkey) to add flavor and stretch the meat a bit. I'd add about a cup to the meat mixture. You may have to reduce the amount of water you add if you're using a taco mix since the tomatoes will be juicy.

Also, try chopping the tomatoes, giving a quick saute in olive oil to heat them up and then toss with cooked pasta, a bit of olive oil and grated parmesan cheese, pepper and oregano for a nice fresh sauce. It's a nice break from the usual marinara, and you can add in other veggies as well, we like broccoli (add to the pasta water a few minutes before the pasta is done to cook it) mushrooms (saute with the tomato), etc.

There's lots of stuff you can do with tomatoes. Enjoy!

 

[chrissyt27]

For the last 2 years we had a lot of tomatoes left. All I did was put them in my food processor for a quick minute and that diced them up. I froze them in containers. We just used some in chili. I ended up with 4 containers and really don’t know I will do with the rest. When I dumped them in the chili, I dumped the liquid fist, there was a lot of water and I didn’t want watery chili, but I ended up adding water, so it would have been okay.
You just want to make sure you get to them before the start to go bad. All I did was wash, and cut the tops off. I did cherry tomatoes, as well as bigger ones, just in the processor they went, yellow, red, didn’t matter and it tasted just fine.

 

[JeanneS]

I would like to personally THANK YOU for posting this. I made it today (my tomatoes were thawing for a couple days in fridge) and I used about 5 1/2 lbs of frozen tomatoes for this recipe (no canned ones except the paste). It turned out great! And a perfect way to use up some of my frozen tomatoes. I needed a tomato sauce for a Nepalese dish (lamb dumplings) and I just took some of this and put it in a seperate pot near the end of the cooking and added cilantro, etc. I think I'll soon dig out more of my tomatoes to make this with. It started out with a lot of liquid (from my thawed tomatoes) but it rendered down perfect to a rich thick marinara! ...I didn't have to throw out any of the tomato water!

Go to CookingLight.Com, they have a recipie that I have used for a few years that is wonderful!! You can experiment with it and tweak it to your liking.

It's called Marinara Magnifica, and I'm sure you could use your tomatoes in place of the one's it calls for.

 

[MineMail]

Peel and defrost the tomatoes. Trim and cut string beans into 3" pieces. (Costco french green beans are the best - no strings; just trim the ends and cut)

Saute 3 cloves of garlic in 2 tbls of olive oil
Add the defrosted tomatoes with juice
Mash the tomatoes
Add the green beans and simmer for 30-40 mins on low

Cook ziti and drain well

Add the ziti to the tomatoes and green beans

We eat it as a main dish, especially on Fridays during Lent, but you could make it a side dish.

 

[mrodgers]

We normally survive all winter on chili from the tomatoes in the freezer. I like chili soupy, so the amount of water in frozen tomatoes is great for chili. We just thaw the tomatoes right in the pot, add beans and beef, toss a bit of chili powder and it's done.

 

[scbelleatheart]

I guess my question is, were they peeled before they were froze?

 

[North of Mouse]

I didnt know you could even freeze tomatos!!

I usually have an overabundance of cherry tomatos in the summer....I can just throw them in a freezer bag and freeze them? and then defrost and throw in a salad?

No, that would not work You can use them in any dish that you would cook that calls for tomatoes. They break down when thawed, so would not be used the same as any fresh tomatoes. We have always frozen tomatoes for cooking.