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If you want to render velvety-smooth tomato sauces from fresh tomatoes, take the time to blanch and peel the tomatoes. Or blanch and peel tomatoes for recipes that call for canned tomatoes. Enjoy the superior flavor of fresh while the farmers’ markets—or your garden—overflow with gorgeous tomatoes.
If removing the skins sounds wasteful to you, dehydrate and grind them into zero-waste tomato skin powder. If turning on the oven to dehydrate tomato skins sounds like a waste of energy, dehydrate them under the rear windshield of a car during an increasingly common heat wave.
Step 1: Choose large tomatoes
The larger the tomato, the fewer you’ll have to peel. I bought heavy Big Boys at the farmers’ market on the weekend for this post.
Although I adore dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes and buy cases of them at the end of every summer, blanching and peeling such small tomatoes might drive me over the edge. For those, I roast them and run them through a food mill to remove the skins.
Step 2: Prep the tomatoes
Wash and core the tomatoes and add those cores to your vegetable scrap stash for making free broth. Score the bottom of each tomato with a shallow X.
Step 3: Scald the tomatoes briefly and cool
Fill a pot with enough water that it will cover the tomatoes when you add them. (Don’t add them yet.) Bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with cold water and ice cubes.
Once the water boils, carefully place the tomatoes in the pot, only a few at a time if they are very large. Scalding in small batches will prevent the water from cooling too much when you add the tomatoes to the pot.
With a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes after approximately one minute or until the skin starts to pull away from and wrinkle around the scoring. Immediately submerge the tomatoes in the ice water bath to halt the cooking. The skin of very small tomatoes may start to peel and wrinkle more quickly. Keep an eye on them.
Step 4: Peel the tomatoes
When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off. Your fingers should suffice for the job. Small amounts of tomato flesh clung to a few of my skins. I scraped that off gently with the side of a spoon.
Stop 5: Make tomato skin powder
This step isn’t very much additional work. You basically arrange the skins on a wire rack placed on a cookie sheet and dry them somewhere. I dehydrated these under the car’s rear windshield for a few hours during the recent heat wave. (I wouldn’t do this in a fumey new car.) We are lucky where I live to have had only a couple of difficult days. I feel for people and all living things in Arizona suffering through the record heat. (If climate change has kicked in your eco-anxiety and you want to do something, go here for actions you can take.)
You could also dehydrate the tomato skins in the oven at 200℉ for approximately two hours or until completely crisp. Once dry, they emit a satisfying crinkling sound when you handle them.
I have ground up dehydrated tomato skins in both a Magic Bullet and in a spice mill/coffee grinder and the latter grinds the skins up much finer. I bought my grinder at the thrift shop, where I see them all the time. People must regularly attempt to cut caffeine, unload their grinders, fall off the wagon, buy new grinders and repeat the cycle. Mine cost seven dollars and works really well.
Store the tomato skin powder in a jar in the spice cupboard and use it to add a hint of tomato flavor to soups, dips, sauces and so on. Or mix it in with nutritional yeast to top a big bowl of popcorn for a zero-waste snack.
Blanch and Peel Tomatoes and Make Tomato Powder With the Skins
- large tomatoes small will do but require more work
Blanch and Peel the Tomatoes
Wash and core the tomatoes. Score the bottom of each one with a shallow X.
Fill a pot with enough water that it will cover the tomatoes when you add them. (Don’t add them yet.) Bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with cold water and ice cubes.
Once the water boils, carefully place the tomatoes in the pot, only a few at a time if they are very large. Scalding in small batches will prevent the water from cooling too much when you add the tomatoes to the pot.
With a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes after approximately one minute or until the skin starts to pull away from and wrinkle around the scoring. Immediately submerge the tomatoes in the ice water bath to halt the cooking. The skin of very small tomatoes may start to peel and wrinkle more quickly. Keep an eye on them.
When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off. Your fingers should suffice for the job. A bit of tomato flesh clung to a few of my skins. Use the side of a spoon to gently scrape that off.
Tomato Skin Powder
Arrange the skins on a wire rack placed on a cookie sheet and dehydrate in the oven at 200℉ or until completely dry and crispy. Alternatively, dehydrate the skins in a food dehydrator.
Place the tomato skins in a spice grinder/coffee mill and grind. They won’t become completely powdery but the particles will be quite small. If you have a large number of skins, work in batches. Store the tomato skin powder in a jar in the spice cupboard.
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