Peeling Tomatoes

I just harvested the last of my tomatoes for the year, so it’s tomato sauce canning time! Since tomatoes ripen at different times, I freeze my tomatoes as they ripen, so that (hopefully) by the end of the season, I will have enough to make sauce. This year, I ended up with two full gallon bags of frozen Roma tomatoes and about another 3 lbs. of fresh tomatoes, so about 9 lbs. of tomatoes total. I have a food mill (my “Sauce Master” ) that removes the skins and seeds at the same time, and leaves you with a tomato purée, with no chunks. I wanted a chunkier sauce this time and found a recipe that left the seeds in, so I only needed to remove the skins. Peeling tomatoes is a bit time-consuming, but is very simple and easy.

First, remove the stem. Then, with a paring knife, make a shallow X shape in the bottom (blossom end) of the tomato.

In batches of 3 or 4 tomatoes at a time, drop the tomatoes into boiling water until you see the skin start to peel away at the X (usually no longer than 30 seconds and sometimes much faster).

With a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and put them directly into a bowl of ice water. This will stop any cooking that may have started from the blanching.

The peels should then slide right off!

This works for fresh or frozen tomatoes that have been thawed (it’s just not as pretty).

If you have chickens, you can feed the skins to them. They love them!