By Marisa McClellan
August 31, 2023
Source: The Kitchn
Photo Source: Unsplash,
Buy tomatoes while they're cheap this summer and you'll be enjoying your bounty all winter long in soups and stews with this homemade tomato paste.
MAKES
20 to 24 ounces
PREP
1 hour
COOK
3 hours to 4 hours
Homemade tomato paste is an entirely different — and utterly more delicious — beast than the kind you can buy at the supermarket. It takes about a day to make (happily, much of that work is hands-off), and in the end, you’ll have enough tomato paste to last you through several cooking projects. In my book, homemade is worth the effort every time.
In this recipe, you’ll only need four ingredients and you’ll go through a process that includes passing the tomatoes through a food mill and baking the tomato pulp until reduced to paste.
Tips for Making Tomato Paste
Go for Roma or San Marzano tomatoes for the greatest yield.
Use a food mill, sieve, or chinois to separate the tomato pulp from the seeds and skins.
As you bake the tomato pulp, the paste will reduced by more than half and it will look shiny and brick-colored.
Portion the finished paste into ice cube trays, freeze, and then bag and label.
Credit: Joe Lingeman
Homemade vs. Store-Bought Tomato Paste
Most of us know tomato paste as a pantry staple, bought in either small tin cans or (more expensively) imported tubes for easier dispensing. The grocery versions are rarely anything special — just containers of dense, smooth tomato concentrate.
When you make it yourself, you get to choose the tomatoes you use, and thus the flavor of the finished concentrate. Slow-cooking also gives the paste a hearty, rich flavor unlike the store-bought counterpart.
Credit: Joe Lingeman
Choosing the Right Tomatoes for Tomato Paste
There is one thing you should keep in mind: While any tomato can be used to make paste, the kind of tomato you pick will make a difference in your final yield. The times when I’ve made it with heirloom slicing tomatoes, my finished yield filled just three tiny jars; the times when I’ve used meaty paste tomatoes, I got almost twice that. So bear that in mind before diving in with those precious heirlooms.
Credit: Joe Lingeman
Storing Homemade Tomato Paste
The recipe below gives directions for boil-water canning this tomato paste, but if you’d like to take the easy way out, portion the finished paste into ice cube trays, freeze, and then bag and label the frozen cubes. Anytime you need just a small amount of tomato paste, pull out a cube. These cubes can be frozen for up to nine months.
How to Use Homemade Tomato Paste
Homemade tomato paste works beautifully in all the traditional places, like soups, stews, and chili. However, the long oven roasting gives it the kind of intense tomato-y flavor that also makes it delicious scraped on toasted baguette rounds and topped with fresh ricotta cheese or painted into a spinach omelet.
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