Using Frozen Tomatoes

As an experiment, I froze some of the cherry tomatoes that started to accumulate.  Researching the subject introduced me to the blog Food in Jars, which is primarily about canning.

There are two problems with preserving small tomatoes.  First, they're a pain to peel, and you need to peel any tomato you plan to process because the peel will come off anyway and end up in ribbons in your finished product.  Second, the canning process will overcook a small tomato and turn your preserves into tasteless, lumpy tomato sauce.

Marisa's solution was to freeze them whole, with the skin intact.  So I put almost a pound of them on waxed paper and stuck them in the freezer.  A couple of days later, they went into a ziplock until needed.

For some tamales I was making, I defrosted the bag.  As expected, the tomatoes gave off water as they defrosted, but not as much as I thought they would.  I was surprised that the texture of the tomatoes was very similar to what I would have gotten if I had canned them.  They were as soft as if they had been stewed and the skins were coming off.  I only had to slice them in half and cook them for a couple of minutes to achieve the texture I was looking for.  The taste was very fresh because they had not been cooked as long as they would have been to achieve the same texture with freshly picked and chopped tomatoes.

The moral of the story is: yes, you can freeze tomatoes!  But only do it if you plan to cook them.