Preserving tomatoes is one of the easiest ways to get a homemade larder started. Over summer and autumn, tomatoes are so abundant, whether you grow them yourself or buy them by the box from your favourite fruit and veg shop or market. If you’re organised and ready to give preserving tomatoes a go, it’s quite possible to bottle, dry and brew up a year’s supply of tomato sauces and condiments in a timely fashion. Yes, you may well be splashed red by the end of the process, but that’s what summer preserving is all about, isn’t it?
Both big and small tomatoes are fine for preserving, but you may want to approach them in different ways. There are ‘sauce tomatoes’ like Roma and San Marzano; tomatoes that have been bred to be fleshy instead of juicy, so you get more sauce per tomato. But any tomato will work for the below techniques, so use whatever you can get hold of.
If you’re growing tomatoes, preserving needs to fit in with your schedule as you’ll be doing a bit here, a bit there, as they ripen over the season. If you’re buying tomatoes by the box, it’s more a case of setting aside a few days to get it all done at once. Go, go, tomato!