Last Updated on January 11, 2022 by Aaron von Frank
Got more tomatoes than you know what to do with? Make your own delicious sun-dried tomatoes that you can eat throughout the year!
Sometimes our garden creates a good problem: too much food.
We’re eating our summer garden produce as fast as we can. We’re feeding it to our ducks. We’re giving away bunches of it to friends and family. No matter what we do, the piles of food on our countertops and in our fridge and on our tables are getting big enough to pose a health hazard.
Recently, Bob the cat was nearly felled by a cascading pile of heirloom squash. After rolling in fresh catnip and taking a lengthy nap, he seemed fully recovered from the trauma.
We even made a veggie fireworks display for July 4th.
Bob von Kitten was so impressed with our 4th of July food fireworks display that he woke up from his nap (for about 20 seconds).
Every gardener needs to have a few long-term food storage methods
So, what do we do with all the extra piles of squash/zucchini, tomatoes, melons, chanterelle mushrooms, beans and other produce that have piled up around Tyrant Farms? Sure, we do a good bit of canning and pickling, but most gardeners are already familiar with those food-saving methods.
For the sake of brevity, we won’t delve into ALL of our favorite long-term storage methods for each type of excess produce. For now, we’ll just share one of our favorite ways to easily store a bunch of extra tomatoes: making soft & chewy sun-dried tomatoes!
If you’ve got a bunch of extra tomatoes lying around that you don’t know what to do with, we hope you’ll find this information helpful.
Looking for a quick & easy way to store lots of extra tomatoes?
A beautiful heirloom tomato at Tyrant Farms.
We grew over 30 varieties of tomatoes this year, most of them heirlooms. One of the new hybrid varieties we’re growing is “Tumbling Tom” tomatoes. We wanted a few low-growing, cascading plants that produced huge amounts of early-ripening bite-sized tomatoes and our Tumbling Toms have done a beautiful job in this role.
Our four Tumbling Tom tomato plants easily produce a colander-full of tomatoes per day, and they’re just getting started.
A container full of Tumbling Tom tomatoes at Tyrant Farms.
These small tomatoes are perfect for “sun-drying.” We’re using quotation marks on “sun-drying” because we actually dehydrate them in our trusty Excalibur dehydrator (which takes about one day) rather than using a true sun-drying tomato method which can take over a week (or longer if it’s raining frequently).
Dehydrated sun-dried tomato recipe note…
One year we made a bunch of sun-dried tomatoes that had a great flavor profile, but they were a bit too hard and crunchy for our liking. We tweaked our method by adding olive oil to try to get a softer, chewier sun-dried tomato. We’re pleased to say, our new recipe works and tastes great!
Follow our recipe below to easily make your own sun-dried tomatoes and be sure to check out the process photos below the recipe card:
Recipe: Soft and chewy “sun-dried” tomatoes in a dehydrator
Dehydrated soft and chewy "sun-dried" tomatoes
A quick and easy recipe to make delicious, soft and chewy dried tomatoes that you can enjoy throughout the year.
Ingredients
- Vine-ripened tomatoes (any quantity)
- Extra virgin olive oil (1 tablespoon per 5 cups chopped tomatoes)
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt per 5 cups chopped tomatoes
Instructions
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Step 1. Slice the tomatoes.
For small tomatoes, simply cut them in half and drop them in your bowl. Cut larger tomatoes into chunks about the size of a pingpong ball (they’ll shrink considerably when dried). See article images for ideal sizes.
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Step 2. Add oil and salt.
Once your tomatoes are all cut and in the bowl, gently toss them in olive oil (this is what helps keep the skin soft) and sea salt (for flavor and extra preservative). Optional - at this point, you can also add whatever extra herbs you’d like but we prefer to keep ours plain.
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Step 3. Dry.
Lay the tomato slices on your dehydrating racks at 125 degrees fahrenheit for about 24-48 hours. Do a taste test on your largest slices before considering them done. You do NOT want any moisture left in the tomatoes or they could turn bad during long-term storage. If you have any doubt that they're dried, continue dehydrating them.
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Step 4. Cool & store.
When they’re done, let them cool to room temperature, then store them in an air-tight jar or ziplock bag for future use. As you can see from the photos, tomatoes (like all fruits and veggies) are mostly water, so they’ll lose a huge percentage of their mass when dried.
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Step 5. Eat (our favorite step)!
We’ve eaten our sun-dried tomatoes over a year later and they still taste as good as the day they came off the rack. They’re absolutely delicious on homemade pizza, in pasta, or as a quick snack.
Pictures to help show you how to make dehydrated sun-dried tomatoes:
Sun-dried tomatoes going into the dehydrator at Tyrant Farms. This shows the ideal size of tomatoes when prepped for dehydration. You can pack them fairly close together because they’ll quickly lose a lot of mass as the water in their cells evaporates.
Voila! Sun-dried tomatoes all finished up. It’s amazing how much of the fruit is composed of water.
A large canning jar full of sun-dried tomatoes at Tyrant Farms. These will taste REALLY good this winter!
We hope you make and enjoy your own delicious homemade soft and chewy sun-dried tomatoes!
Soft and chewy sun-dried tomatoes made in a dehydrator.
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12 Comments
Samantha
August 20, 2023 at 8:34 pmWas wondering if i could put am oxygen absorber in the jar for linger storage ?
Aaron von Frank
August 21, 2023 at 10:08 amSure, an oxygen absorber is a great idea.
Audrey
September 5, 2022 at 7:24 amCould we store these in olive oil?
Aaron von Frank
September 5, 2022 at 11:03 amYes! Olive oil is a great way to store dehydrated tomatoes. Obviously, you’ll want to use the tomatoes and oil before the oil turns, so probably ~6-12 months max.
Susie Helmboldt-Jones
October 8, 2021 at 3:35 pmWhen you say air tight jar, do you mean like when canning boiling the tomatoes in the jars until the lid seals?
Aaron von Frank
October 8, 2021 at 3:48 pmNo, your sundried tomatoes don’t have to be sealed like canned goods. Simply screw on the lid, and you’re good to go. 🙂
Marnie
September 13, 2021 at 1:45 pm24-48 hours in a dehydrator, it appears I took mine to my Mother’s house…how long should I expect in the oven, and at what temperature?
Aaron von Frank
September 13, 2021 at 4:50 pmHi Marnie! To make “sun dried” tomatoes in an oven, cook them on a low setting (around 250°F) for about 3 hours or until they’re to the desired level of dryness. “Done” is going to vary a bit by variety (juicy beefsteak vs dryer Roma) and the size of tomato pieces you use. It’s definitely easier to go with a dehydrator but an oven is an ok alternative. Good luck!
SK
June 3, 2020 at 2:22 pmWhen I click on the link for the “Tumbling Toms”, they do not come up on the supplier’s website. Is there another name for them? Is the large tomato in the picture one of these? Also, do you keep the jars of sundried tomatoes in the refrigerator?
Amber Zenner
September 15, 2015 at 11:30 amHow long do these last stored in jars? I have read that the tomatoes will reabsorb moisture from the air and get moldy. Is it better to store them in the freezer?
Aaron
October 22, 2015 at 4:30 pmAmber: We store our sun-dried tomatoes in air tight jars and have had them last for a year. We’re not sure if they last longer than that because we’ve usually eaten them all by then. You can also add some rice in the bottom of the jars to help absorb any unwanted moisture.
Aaron von Frank
January 8, 2017 at 4:24 pmSorry, Amber. Our commenting system was broken, so you might not have gotten my original reply to your comment:
“We store our sun-dried tomatoes in air tight jars and have had them last for a year. We’re not sure if they last longer than that because we’ve usually eaten them all by then. You can also add some rice in the bottom of the jars to help absorb any unwanted moisture.”