If you garden and preserve a lot of food, sooner or later you face the problem of all those who tread the same path before you. Where do you store it all? The freezers are full. Those special shelves you installed for canned goods are full. The pantry is bursting at the seams.
Dehydrating is wonderful: Dried fruits and vegetables take so little space and require no energy source once they reached the dehydrated state. Here is a further boon. Consider powdering dehydrated vegetables to use as a powder.
This season we set aside some of our dried tomatoes for powder. The powder is beautiful! The color and texture of tomato powder deserves admiring eyes — ours sits on an open shelf in the kitchen.
The powder is lovely but is it useful? Follow along as we explore this question. This is what we do know:
With the low heat required to dry the tomatoes, much of the nutrition is still intact.
When rehydrated, the color is a vibrant red. How can you not love that?
Due to the rich flavor of the powder, not much is required to make something like a simple cup of broth-based tomato soup.
A heaping tablespoon of tomato powder gives as much tomato flavor to a sauce as a pint of canned tomatoes. The texture of the sauce will be slightly different but it is hard to get too picky when you are using one tablespoon of powder instead of a pint bottle on the shelf. It’s just a matter of developing the habit of using tomato powder rather than canned or frozen tomatoes.
Making Dried Tomato Powder
Dry your tomato crop as usual either sun-dried or in a dehydrator.
Store the dried tomatoes in a freezer bag in the freezer for about a week. This is a “just-in-case” measure to kill off any bug eggs that may be hiding in your tomatoes.
Set up the blender.
Remove the tomatoes from the freezer and transfer immediately to the blender. If you have more than one blender full, do this in batches. The idea is to grind up the tomatoes when they are frozen and fragile as glass. This approach gives you the finest powder.
Transfer the tomato powder to a glass container with a tight-fitting lid.
Store in a cool place, away from direct sunlight.
Buy Tomato Powder
We’re not going to kid you: Making your own tomato powder is a lot of work and you may be looking for a quicker option this season. This is a bulk tomato powder we like that’s organic and well-priced, from our Amazon partner, here.
Using Dried Tomato Powder
Here are some ideas for enjoying your tomato powder:
In simple soup.
Add it to a more complex soup that is crying out for more tomato flavor.
In enchilada sauce.
Sprinkled over ground beef as it is cooking or in hamburger patties as they are being formed.
In salad dressings.
Sprinkled over fresh vegetable juice.
In vegetable dips.
An addition to pasta sauces of all sorts, including spaghetti sauce for a more intense tomato flavor.
A sprinkle into scrambles eggs before cooking.
A sprinkle over cottage cheese with cucumber and green onion, sea salt and sumac.
Homemade Tomato Powder
Jeanie Rose
Make your own tomato powder from your sun dried tomatoes!
Thanks for the post on tomato powder. I dry tomatoes too and use them in soups and stews…broken up though. Great reminder about the powder! I grind up my dehydrated veggies and herbs in a coffee grinder just for those items. It makes them into a much finer powder for sure! Thanks for your tips and inspiration…blessings, Nancy at livininthegreen
Very creative – I have never thought about dehydrating tomatoes to make powder! I would love to have you share this on Thursday at Tasty Traditions http://myculturedpalate.com/
The colour of your dried tomato powder really is wonderful! It looks really flavourful too. I’ve never used tomato powder but I can see where it would be really, really useful and tasty in so many recipes.
I like that color on your dried tomato powder. Looks like anything that you pop it into will instantly turn into life, giving it a good taste.
I like how it can be used in many recipes. Thanks 🙂
Amanda, I am featuring this on FF this week. Are you ok with me posting your picture in the featured section? If not I can place it below in the ‘other’ featured posts section without pictures. This is such a creative use for tomatoes! Love it.
Kandy Inglis
11 years ago
I use the powder for fermented ketchup in my Pickl-it jars…
p r
11 years ago
I tried making this last week – it took my tomatoes 4-5 days to dry. Did I do something wrong? Used my Excalibur set at 125 degrees.
Patsy
Naomi
11 years ago
My dehydrated tomatoes are always rubbery, not crisp, so I have my doubts about them making a fine powder. Also, when I remove food from the freezer, it begins to get condensation. How do you prevent that?
Behnam
11 years ago
Dear Lady/Sir;
Would you please advise 10 kilo-grams of tomato turns to how many grams of tomato powder? Or 100 grams of tomato powder is equivalent to how many kilos of tomato?
Remain with thanks,
Behnam
I don’t have equivalents for how much powder you get from tomatoes. I think that would depend on the tomatoes; paste-types will yield more powder than slicing tomatoes.
But I have equivalents the other way around, from the powder into common tomato products:
tomato paste = 1 part tomato powder + 1 part water
tomato sauce = 1 part tomato powder + 3 parts water
tomato soup = 1 part tomato powder + 1 part water + 2 parts cream
tomato juice = 1 part tomato powder + 24 parts water
Thanks for the post on tomato powder. I dry tomatoes too and use them in soups and stews…broken up though. Great reminder about the powder! I grind up my dehydrated veggies and herbs in a coffee grinder just for those items. It makes them into a much finer powder for sure! Thanks for your tips and inspiration…blessings, Nancy at livininthegreen
Loved your post. I had no clue about making tomato powder and its uses. Thanks for this great info. Will surely try this out.
Very creative – I have never thought about dehydrating tomatoes to make powder! I would love to have you share this on Thursday at Tasty Traditions http://myculturedpalate.com/
I dried my skins too this year. Thanks so much for the recipes. Tomato soup with 1 teaspoon. Hmm. So much better than Campbell’s 🙂
This is new information for me. This is not popular in my country. In my country tomatoes mostly used as sauce and juice ingredients.
The colour of your dried tomato powder really is wonderful! It looks really flavourful too. I’ve never used tomato powder but I can see where it would be really, really useful and tasty in so many recipes.
Great Post! Hope you are having a great weekend and thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Come Back Soon!
Miz Helen
Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures’ Make Your Own! Monday link-up.
Check back tomorrow when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the top 3 featured posts! 🙂
I like that color on your dried tomato powder. Looks like anything that you pop it into will instantly turn into life, giving it a good taste.
I like how it can be used in many recipes. Thanks 🙂
Amanda, I am featuring this on FF this week. Are you ok with me posting your picture in the featured section? If not I can place it below in the ‘other’ featured posts section without pictures. This is such a creative use for tomatoes! Love it.
I use the powder for fermented ketchup in my Pickl-it jars…
I tried making this last week – it took my tomatoes 4-5 days to dry. Did I do something wrong? Used my Excalibur set at 125 degrees.
Patsy
My dehydrated tomatoes are always rubbery, not crisp, so I have my doubts about them making a fine powder. Also, when I remove food from the freezer, it begins to get condensation. How do you prevent that?
Dear Lady/Sir;
Would you please advise 10 kilo-grams of tomato turns to how many grams of tomato powder? Or 100 grams of tomato powder is equivalent to how many kilos of tomato?
Remain with thanks,
Behnam
I don’t have equivalents for how much powder you get from tomatoes. I think that would depend on the tomatoes; paste-types will yield more powder than slicing tomatoes.
But I have equivalents the other way around, from the powder into common tomato products:
tomato paste = 1 part tomato powder + 1 part water
tomato sauce = 1 part tomato powder + 3 parts water
tomato soup = 1 part tomato powder + 1 part water + 2 parts cream
tomato juice = 1 part tomato powder + 24 parts water