How to Put Up Tomatoes (The super easy way!)
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It’s that time of year again (in the south, at least!). If you planted tomatoes back at the start of the summer, they are likely coming in by the bucketful right about now. Around this time of year, I feel like I have tomatoes coming out my ears! (Ever see that I Love Lucy Episode where she worked in the chocolate factory?). Still, I LOVE to grow tomatoes and I know full well this bounty will come in very handy once growing season is over. As Weezy said in Steel Magnolia’s “I am an old Southern woman. It is my obligation to wear funny hats and grow tomatoes”.
I actually know very few Southerners who don’t grow tomatoes. They are so easy to grow and produce such remarkably versatile fruit that can be made into any number of dishes and even preserved with ease. So, on the chance that you are also experiencing a bounty of tomatoes, I thought I’d hurry up and get this post to you so that delicious produce doesn’t go to waste. Preserving tomatoes is so easy though, that you don’t have to just save it for a bucketful! If you even have one tomato that is quickly ripening with no immediate need for it, use this same method and freeze it to use in a dish on another day. Waste not, want not – and nothing beats a garden grown tomato!
Today, I’ll be putting up five heirloom tomatoes from my gardens at Bountiful. They don’t know how lucky they are that I let them turn red! I’ve been a frying up green tomatoes left and right here lately but these five managed to grow up despite my fried green tomato love. I’ve had a busy week and there are plenty more tomatoes about to be ripe as well so I wanted to put these up to keep them from going to waste. Like I said, this is so easy that you can put up one or one hundred tomatoes.
You’ll need: Pot of boiling water, freezer bags.
Get a pot of water to boiling and drop in your tomatoes.
Of course, you can always can your tomatoes as well but freezing is just about the easiest (and inexpensive) way to preserve fresh garden produce so that is the one I’m bringing you today. This method is also more convenient for smaller batches.
Like so……….
After a minute or two, the skin will split like this. Remove them as the skin splits and place them in a dish. I use a 9×13 inch dish to put them in. You don’t want to use a plate because when you remove the peels and chop them up there will be a lot of yummy juice involved.
If you have very ripe tomatoes, they will take longer to split open but hang in there, I promise it will happen.
See? Nice and split. Now for the cool part.
Oh, speaking of cool, you’re gonna want to let these cool down a bit.
If you try to peel them now you’ll find they are about as hot as little fireballs! I wait half an hour or so.
Then, just take hold of the skin and it pulls right off!
You’ll need to get a knife involved at the top, where the stem was attached. Cut that part off.
I discard all of my skins and tops but they’d be great in a compost bin if you have one.
I’ll be getting into that a little later.
My green endeavors are coming bit by bit.
My five tomatoes after the skins have been removed. You can tell a few of them gave up the ghost rather quickly.
I like it when things obey me, even if it is just a vegetable. We gotta take our little triumphs where we can get them!
Now I chop each one up but you can leave them whole if you prefer.
They are slippery so be careful.
Here they are, all ready to be bagged!
I like to write on my bag the date and where they came from. If your grandmother sent the tomatoes to you, it’s always nice to be able to call and say “We had the most delicious stew made with your tomatoes today!”.
Admittedly, a red pen is not the best choice for writing on bags of tomatoes but Katy kept getting into my permanent pen collection so I had to hide them. Now I can’t find them. Isn’t that always how it works? I need more sharpies…
Fill your bag up, get out as much air as you can, and freeze! They are now ready to be used in sauces, stews, and anything else you can dream up. There is NOTHING like your own fresh tomatoes in the middle of winter (or any other time of year for that matter!).
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Southern Plate IN and ON the News!
A lovely reporter did a story on me that ran in this week’s paper. It is two pages long and you can read it online here.
WAAY TV, Channel 31 in Huntsville, placed my Southern Plate button on their home page and then emailed to tell me about it! I was thrilled to death. When I called to thank them, I spoke with the nicest lady, Leslie, who works at the station. The very next night, She featured me in her on air broadcast of who she recommends following on Twitter and said all sorts of nice things about Southern Plate! Thank you so much!
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All this talk of tomatoes has got me thinking Italian. Next to Southern food, Italian is my personal favorite, or “Eye-talian” as my grandmother pronounces it! You won’t want to miss a great new blog by a Southern Plate reader and dear friend, JoAnn. Her blog, Light Green Solutions, is an innovative take on going green using baby steps – much more my speed these days! To visit her, click here.
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Pulling your hair out this summer? Southern Plate has now partnered with the Juice Box Jungle! On the top right of this page, there is a video box. All of you parents who need a bit of humor and support in the endeavor of raising your kids will be sure to enjoy the videos there and you can watch them without ever leaving Southern Plate! Videos change regularly so keep an eye on it and don’t miss a single one! This is not just for Moms but Dads as well (It might even help Aunts and Uncles!)
Attitude is a little thing
that makes a big difference.
Submitted by Southern Plate Reader, Sonya M. To submit your positive or motivational quote, please click here!
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Mmmm! I can’t wait till all my green tomatoes get all red and happy! So far, all I’ve got out of my garden is lemon cucumbers..Congrats on the paper!
Thank you!!
My tomatoes are just now starting to come in good. I’m fighting the ants over them though! lol
Always good to see you, Lindsay!
Sprinkle grits around the plants, the ants will take them, chew them, and as grits do they will expand and kill the ant without harmful chemicals.
Thanks Christy
This is so much easier than canning! Now if you will please just come up with an easy tomato relish I’ll luv ya’ forever. The newspaper story was great!
Linda
I shall get right on that, my dear! To be loved forever is something to aspire to!!!!
Thank you!
Gratefully,
Christy
Thanks for this method. I’ll break out the Foodsaver for this one. Is the boiling merely to remove the skin or is it the blanching that’s important here?
It’s actually for both. You want them blanched a bit but the easy skin removal is a wondrous by product!!
Can’t wait till we can have a garden – no place for it in this tiny apartment. Home-grown tomatoes are some of my favorite things in the world, and I really like the idea of freezing them for later!
p.s. I’ve been working on doing lots of freezer meals, inspired by your freezer “cooking class” a while back. I’ve got curry in the freezer, and a big ole’ batch of chili on the stove right now, plus several other meals still in the planning stages. I’m looking forward to having a freezer full of ready-made meals.
Hey Stephanie! I love freezer cooking. I don’t do it all of the time but I always have at least some meals tucked away and they really save me during times when I need them most! I recently ended up with a house full of people on a Sunday I hadn’t expected to feed anyone other than the four of us. I pulled out a few casseroles and popped them in the oven and ended up putting out a pretty good spread in a very short amount of time – if I do say so myself! lol
Has your little man had his birthday yet?
I can make a really nice “eye-talian” sauce with those yummy looking tomatoes. This is something I will definitely do. How nice to go in your freezer in the middle of the winter and pull out a bag of “real tomatoes”, those things you get in the supermarket just don’t cut it.
Thank you for sharing my link with your wonderful readers.I do hope they will stop by and help me on my journey to going green, one baby step at a time.
Congratulations! What a wonderful story, and I saw your button on channel 31’s site. Very cool. I’m so happy for you.
Thank you JoAnn!!! I gotta tell ya, I am really enjoying your site. I love how down to earth and non-intimidating your suggestions are. Great for the layperson who might be discouraged by more extreme measures right at the start!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
My tomatoes should be ready soon. I cant wait!!!!!! Thanks for the recipe. Easy is my speed!
Lawd honey, if easy is your speed, you sure did land in the right place! I am an easy devoteeeeeee – and lazy, too! lol
Christy, there is nothing better than a fresh homegrown “mater” sandwich, with lots of mayo and salt on soft white bread…yuuuuuuuuum
Amen, sista, amen on that!!!
pssst…i might sneak in a strip or 2 of bacon….jes’ depends.
Y’all need to come on over. I’ll fix us some tea and we’ll just eat our way through the garden!
LOL…. today, I still have orange fingernails from all the tomatoes that got put up here – froze some sinful pasta sauce, canned some crushed tomatoes and wish I had freezer space for more!
~offers up her freezer~ You jes’ fill it on up, Debbie. I promise not to dig into it – too much. ~grins~
Orange nails, now there is a southern fashion statement!
My tomatoes in SE Ohio are not yet ripe. I have plenty of green ones. They were planted May 20th but we have had an unusually cold summer and nights have been as low in temp as low as 49 degrees and tomatoes just don’t like that! One of these days they will all come on at once and then I will be trying out the freezer tips.
Hey now, green ones are the best ones! lol i only let the ones that slip by me turn red most days!
http://www.southernplate.com/2008/07/fried-green-tomatoes.html
YUM!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
P.S. I simply must get to Ohio one of these days! I talked to some Ohio folks on the phone this morning and boy are y’all some nice people!
I’ve just finished dinner but Connie and Terri have me thinking about a “mater” sandwich with a slice of vidalia onion on it!!! Yum!!!
The Huntsville article was great!!
Bountiful blessings!!
Thank you so much, Tina!!!
I wish my tomatoes did well! Roma and cherry tomatoes are the only kind that seem to do well here! I prepared tomatoes that way a couple of years ago when my husband and I made salsa from scratch. Whew, that was a lot of work!
Congrats on the nice article! You really are getting lots of attention! It’s nice to know you don’t take paid endorsements!
You picked the quote that I’d been thinking about sending to you for a month! It’s on a reusable shopping bag that I bought. Every time I use it, I think, “There a quote Christy would probably like!”
Ooh I had some romas given to me by a friend the other day and I did the hot water bit to get the skins off, then I chopped them up and added them to my spaghetti sauce.
It was DIVINE!!
Thank you so much for that quote, too. I really enjoyed it! I love getting quotes. Every time someone leaves me a new one its like Christmas!
You were so right!!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
Congrats on the nice article….and to think…..we knew you when!!!
I love jar canned tomatoes…..have never tried freezing them. Do you jar can too? My sister does open kettle canning…so easy….and she makes the best spaghetti sauce with the canned jar tomatoes too. YUM!
Hey ! ~laughs~ You knew me when, hehee!
Don’t worry, I’ll never get “famous”!
I don’t jar can my tomatoes because I have sooooooo much freezer space and this method is so easy. But I know a lot of folks who do can theirs! Either way you go, you sure are right about them making the BEST spaghetti sauce! Even if you just add some home canned or home frozen ones to store bought sauce, it makes a whopper of a difference!
Hi Christy,
I was going to look on the internet for a recipe for freezing tomatoes, as I have so many even after giving some away, and what did I find when I opened my email, your recipe for freezing tomatoes. Thank you! It will be great to use my own garden-grown tomatoes in my Italian gravy (sauce).
The article on you was terrific!
Karen
HOW NEAT IS THAT????????? It’s truly amazing how we all seem to be on the same wavelength so often. I love it. I also love this community we have here!
Italian Gravy…love that name for it!!
Thank you so much!
Gratefully,
Christy
There is only two things that money can’t buy: True Love and Home Grown Tomatoes!!! My heirloom tomatoes are still green, big, but green. 8-(
I sure do wish I was close enough to try to bribe you for some of your produce, Del!!!
Y’all, Del is Southern Plate’s “gardening guru”, he is the one I go to for advice anytime I need it on anything green!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
Okay so our geographical differences are showing! When I read ‘how to put up tomatoes’ I thought you were going to show more tips on grow to grow your tomato plants. haha
That’s funny! “Puttin’ up” is definitely a southern thang! Kinda like “looks like it’s a comin’ up a cloud” when a storm is approaching. We just have all kinds of inside phrases. You keep reading Miss Christy’s posts and you’ll be so educated you’ll wanna slap yo momma!!
LOL! Sabrina is so right! I never thought about that, Su!
We “put up” all sorts of things from the garden and we even “put up” jams and jellies, too!
oh Su, I can’t wait to get you down south!!!
Just wanted to let everyone know that this method also works great for peaches. Just canned 10 pints yesterday. Only put them in boiling water for a minute, then a bowl of ice water. Skins come right off and they are sooo juicy! I love me some SC peaches:)
i am sooooo jealous right now…..SC peaches. wow, do you ship…ha ha
BRILLIANT!!
I’m like Terri, I sure do wish I had me some peaches to put up!!!
I have a method that I use, that takes even less time. Wash and dry your tomatoes and put them on a cookie sheet in the freezer. When they are frozen put them in a zip lock freezer bag. When you want to use any of them, just hold them under running water for a bit, and the skin comes right off. Put in a bowl to thaw, then cut out the stems and use however you want to. I’ve done it this way for years, and it works great.
wow – have to try that!
Thank you for posting this! I have quite a few tomato plants in my garden this year (four cherry tomato plants, five roma tomato plants, four Parks Whopper tomato plants, and four SuperSteak tomato plants) and I was just thinking about what I could do with them. The roma’s are going to be used for spaghetti sauce and we’re eating the cherry tomatoes in our salads and just plain by themselves. With the cool summer weather (we’ve hit record lows twice this month already!) my other tomatoes haven’t started ripening up just yet. Oh, but I’m ready for them!
This is the method my mother used most when we had a big garden. She did can tomatoes too but she didn’t like the pressure cooker. I remember setting out bags for spaghetti sauce.
I’m really interested to see more pictures of the tomatoes you planted in the wading pool.
No tomatoes this year. Dad didn’t want to mess with them. Wanted to get the upside down ones but didn’t have anyplace to hang them from where they wouldn’t have been stolen by loverly neighbors. Dad always planted so many we had to end up throwing some away.
If I am lucky enough to find some homegrown ones, I will put them up instead. Thanks for the tips!
When I was growing up in middle Tennessee, my dad always kept a salt shaker in the garden so he could eat the just-picked tomatoes right off the vine like an apple. It’s akin to getting the pot of water boiling before you go pick the sweet corn!
Thank you I have tomtatoes coming out of my ears. I was going to can some of the ripe ones but this seems a bit easier. I have made fried green tomato relish and fried green tomatoes. I am letting the rest of the tomatoes that produce ripen so i can get them preserved. I read the article great job. Let us know when the block party/or SP Get Together will be I know some are willing to fly in. I would love to if I can find out enough in advance.
Thank you so much for all of your hints and tips. I live in town and have lousey soil for a garden but home grown tomatoes are a passion of mine. I would love it if you would post a picture of your tomatoe gardens from the kiddy pools. I was too late this year to try it out, but will be retired soon so would like to try it next year. I thought I’d give a little tip of my own experience in canning tomatoes. Last year a friend of mine was good enough to give me about a bushel and a half of tomatoes, but she picked them green (just before frost last fall) and I had to put them out on my porch to ripen before canning. Even though I was eternally grateful for her thinking of me, when I got to use them I was dissappointed to find that they taste remarkably like store bought canned tomatoes. There is something to be said about waiting for them to ripen naturally on the vine. Again. Thank you for you!!! And if you please, and if you have the time, please post a picture of your garden. Sincerely, Kay
Hi Christy!
This is the only way my Mama & I ever put up tomatoes — I’d never heard of canning them until I was nearly grown. And I still prefer to freeze ‘em! My job when I was younger was to put the tomatoes in Mama’s big old pot & take them back out when the skins split. She did the rest. Now that she isn’t with us any longer, I get to do it all by myself, although I have a 7-year-old son who likes to pitch in (he wants to be a chef when he get grown).
Thanks!
Hello again!
Forgot to mention — Mama & I put up 5 gallon bucketfuls at the time (yep, our garden really was that big).
We put up peaches pretty much the same way, only we dumped them in a sinkful of ice water to cool them off before peeling, slicing & mixing them with sugar & Fruit Fresh. We almost always had hot peach cobbler for Christmas dessert! Heavenly!!
Congrats on the article in the paper. Could you have imagined all this a year ago? How sweet it is………we just love ya. I am anxious to try freezing tomatoes. Thanks for the info.
Fantaastic post. I have 13 tomato plants about ready to have ripe tomatoes and since I have never canned before, your post is perfect for me. Can you do other veggies this way?
My husband always tells me I am crazy because I eat tomatoes like apples. I am like I am from the South we love our tomatoes
. I can not stand the store bought ones. Here in Saudi though the tomatoes taste amazing. All the produce is grown by farmers and its all the best I have ever tasted. I am so glad you posted this because I have been thinking what can I do to save some of these good tomatoes for winter. I will try this here in the next few weeks for sure, hope I do it right!
Great job with the news, you go girl!
Congrats on being in the paper!! Your website is my daily morning routine..”my coffee”. Seeing you in our local paper tickled and thrilled me to no end. Congrats! Madison, AL
Hurray for SP being featured in the paper and with WAAY TV! And gosh, looking at those tomatoes has me craving pasta right now…which is bad, since I just ate dinner ^_^ But at least I can do it for the next night’s dinner!
Thanks for the info – I always peel my maters then bring them to slight boil, let them cool and bag them up. I will try your way now. I’ll probably do some in the next few days. My little 7 yr old farmer has been bringing in several a day now from his garden. I made a big bowl of salsa this weekend with what we had. Now that there coming in good, I’ll start to freeze them for those chilies and chicken stews this winter!
Loved this tip, Christy. Thanks so much. I never knew you could freeze tomatoes to preserve them. It just didn’t dawn on me. This southern girl has got to get her act together! Also, I’ve always loved cooking, but you help turn it into pure joy!
THANK YOU SO-O-O-O MUCH, CHRISTY!!! I started out doing “hot bath” canning as my grandmother taught me. Then after a few a couple years, I began freezing. You know, standing at the kitchen sink for a good 2 hours – peeling, coring, cutting up. Then slowly bringing a large pan full to a boil, while stirring regularly to prevent scorching. Then waiting another couple hours for them to cool enough to bag. By then – I was tired, my back hurt, I had to get up at 5am and usually had a bandaid or two on my fingers! I used your method last night and VOILA!! Cant believe how easy that was. I always but them in a bowl or sink of hot tap water to make them peel easier, so it makes perfect sense. And they are not in there long enough for the flesh to get hot – so you dont have to wait long to bag & freeze!
Christy – I’m so glad I found your blog!! I’ll be freezing up some tomatoes this weekend. And, will be sharing this with my friends!
Keep up the good work!
I like the easy method you have here for putting up tomatoes, just wish I had a big mess of them to put up this year. My heirlooms did not produce as well as I had hoped, and will try something different next time around. But my herbs have outpaced all of my expectations, go figure!
Regards,
CCR =:~)
Where do I begin? You are so awesome!!
I’ve never seen such a great tutorial on storing tomatoes. Thank you!
And the great story in the paper? So well deserved!
We all love you, Christy!!!
xoxoxo,
Betty
Hi – Just found (and joined) your web site,and can’t wait for all the “goodies” to come. Thank you for being so caring and thoughtful to all us beginners.
do u have a recipe to make homemade salsa?
hello,
When I make salsa I put the tomatoes in boiling water for about 3 mins. and then transfer to bowl of cold water. I noticed you didn’t do the last step I mentioned. Why is it that I have to place in cold water after boiling? I’m assuming it’s to stop the cooking (kinda like you have to do with shrimp).