How to Freeze Tomatoes for Canning

Have you ever grown tomatoes and not had enough to can a whole batch at once? Or maybe you’ve grown an abundant harvest and you don’t have enough time to can all of them?

No worries! Freezing tomatoes is the answer to your problems.

Storing your extra tomatoes in the freezer is an awesome time-saver as well as a great way to preserve your extra produce. It’s so easy to do!

Here are my three simple steps: Clean, Cut, Collect.

Clean the Tomatoes

First, simply rinse your tomatoes and dry with a kitchen towel.

Cut the Stem and Spots

Cut out the stem and any green that might be around the top. This will save you time later when you are preparing them to can. The skin does not release easily from an unripe tomato. Leaving tomatoes to ripen on the counter a few extra days before you freeze them will make removing the skin that much easier.

Also, trim out any blemishes from insects, or from the bottom if you’re having minor issues with things like blossom-end rot. You want only the best fruit for your canning. Leave the fruits whole, no need for additional cutting or chopping.

Collect in Bags

Whether you have two, ten, or even twenty, simply toss the prepared tomatoes into a gallon-size freezer bag, squeeze out the air, and set them on a shelf in the freezer. Label each bag with the date you harvested the tomatoes. I’ve learned that each 1-gallon freezer bag will hold enough tomatoes for about 2 ½ – 3 quarts of tomatoes to can.

How to Skin Frozen Tomatoes Before Canning

This is the coolest part (literally!) of freezing whole tomatoes.

Dump a bag of frozen tomatoes into a large colander. Rinse with warm water for 10-15 seconds.

When you pick up a tomato and gently squeeze, the skin should slide right off. You can then set them in a bowl to completely thaw for cold-pack recipes, or chop and toss into a pot for your hot-pack recipes.

If the skin is still sticking to the tomato, try a few more seconds under slightly warmer water. Or if there’s an unripe area that is still holding the skin, you’ll need to cut that off.

Do not thaw them too long, or they will get mushy in your hands. I only thaw one bag at a time to get the best results.

Helpful Ideas

• Thawed tomatoes are best used for canning or cooked recipes. The texture and taste make them unsuitable for eating without cooking first.
• On average, tomatoes last in the freezer about 1 year, however, they may get freezer burned before that, depending on how cold you keep your freezer. I usually use my tomatoes within 4 months.
• A vacuum sealer will extend the time you could keep tomatoes in the freezer since it removes more air than simply squeezing it out of the freezer bag.
• You could skip canning altogether and use freezing as your food preservation method for your cooking tomatoes.

There you have it! Super-easy, now you’ll never have to blanch tomatoes for canning again.

Alisa