Garden Mentors Gardening Academy Sign up

Preserve Tomatoes: Seasoning Salt & Tomato Water 2Fer

Ready to Grow Your Best Garden Now?
Learn about flora and fauna with Garden Mentors.
Learn preserve, craft & make the most from your garden.
Learn to grow your own food and herbs with us.
Join the Garden Mentors Academy Today!
QUICKLY BUILD LASTING GARDENING SKILLS * GROW YOUR THRIVING DREAM GARDEN NOW
MONEYBACK GUARANTEE

Try Tomato Salt & Tomato Water Recipes!

There are many tomato salt recipes out there. But with the instructions that follow, you’ll also make tomato water. And both are delicious. Plus by making tomato salt from tomato water ingredients, you have less waste. And you get way more deliciousness from your tomato bounty!

Tomato salt recipe completed

Preserve your tomato harvest into tasty tomato seasoning salt & tomato water. A 2-fer!

So, what’s tomato water good for?

Tomato water is great to include in cocktails. And it’s an already-salted tomato essence seasoning for many other dishes like soups and stews. Most recipes for tomato water will tell you to “dispose of strained pulp.” But that’s a huge waste! So, instead we’ve put together a tomato salt recipe using this “byproduct.”

So instead of following a recipe that suggests you pulverize your precious dehydrated tomatoes to make powdered tomato seasoning, try our 2-fer-1 method!  And transform a single four pound harvest of tasty red orbs. Nothing wasted!

Here’s how:

Tomato Water Recipe

Print Print
(Makes about 1 quart of tomato water, depending on how watery or pasty your tomatoes are.)

Ingredients:

4 pounds clean, ripe tomatoes

1 T sea salt

Instructions:

Cut tomatoes into quarters. Then place in high powered blender or food processor. Add salt. And blend until pureed.

Next, line a fine mesh strainer with cheese cloth. And place over a large, non-reactive bowl.

Pour pureed tomatoes into the lined strainer. And Gently cover. But do not press. Place in refrigerator to strain over night (or about 6-8 hours).

Remove strainer from bowl and set aside.

Tomato puree

Place a funnel into a 1 quart mason jar. And pour tomato water through funnel into jar. (The tomato water should be mostly clear, not tomato-red.) And your strained liquid should keep in the fridge for several days to use in cocktails, soups or stews.

(In fact, it should taste like a salty version of tomato soup.) Since a little of this goes a very long way, consider pouring the liquid into an ice cube tray to freeze and store longer.

Tomato Seasoning Salt

Print Print

(Makes about 1/2 cup seasoning salt)

Line a few dehydrator trays with parchment paper. Then scoop a couple of big globs of leftover tomato water puree onto the lined tray. Next spread it into a very thin layer using a rubber spatula. And leave a few inches of parchment edges uncovered.Tomato puree to dry into tomato salt recipe

Next place filled trays into your dehydrator. Then, turn it on. And allow it to run for about 12-24 hours until the tomato puree is dried and crispy.

Dehydrated tomato puree

How long you will need to run it will vary. So impacting factors may include your heat setting. Too your drying environment may change things. As well, the wetness and thickness of your puree may play a part. That being said, in our Excalibur, we used the 145F setting. And it took about 18 hours to dry the paste sufficiently.

Remove the finished trays. Over a cutting board, place the dried parchment tomato side down. And carefully peel away the parchment.

Dried tomato puree for salt ready to grind

Then add the broken tomato chips to a food processor or high speed blender with a dry foods pitcher. And process until the chips are powdery and have a few flecks like pet goldfish food flakes.

Tomato seasoning salt After processing, dehydrated tomato pulp is ready to store as a seasoning salt.

Finally, place finished powder into a dry, airtight jar.

Try a sprinkle on hard boiled eggs instead of plain salt. Or use a few dashes to season vinaigrette, soups, stews or meat rubs.

Want other ways to preserve your tomato harvest?

Try our easy frozen chunks guidelines.

And be sure to dehydrate some tomatoes too!

Garden Mentors has been a paid writer for Fiskars. The scissors in this article were provided for trial purposes. However, Garden Mentors has received no compensation from Fiskars for this post or photograph.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *