Got too many tomatoes? Here’s the easiest thing you can do with them.

Last weekend, my husband came in from the garden carrying yet another container of tomatoes. “There’s twice as many still on the vines”. He said I looked panicked. Perhaps that’s why he wrote “tomato plan” on the chalk wall in the kitchen.

I bought the money-maker tomato plants in November. They are the unapologetic basic bitch of the tomato family, prolific and low maintenance. They are now everywhere – in bowls, in the fridge, on every kitchen windowsill, and still growing, triffid-like in the garden.

My husband has lovingly cared for them despite not eating them. I thought that was my job, but it turns out it’s finding ways to stave off rising anxiety about wasted fruit while maintaining staunch resistance against the man. 

Obviously, you can give your tomatoes away or just eat them. I ate 12 just the other day. I had six chopped up over lunch and dinner and a portion of six in that same lunch and dinner. My prostate, if I had one, would be extremely healthy, but there is a limit to how many tomatoes a person can eat.

My number one tip for dealing with excess tomatoes? Freeze them. I didn’t invent this, but there is something about only seeing fresh or canned tomatoes your whole life that makes it revelatory.

You don’t need to do anything before freezing them. Some people say you should wash them (maybe) or blanch them in boiling water and remove the skins first. Stay tuned because you do not need to do this. I apologise to the dedicated growers of the beauties designed to be eaten fresh. I don’t know anything else and this works for me.

Truly, just chuck them in a bag and shut them away in the freezer. Like all produce with a high water content, they won’t be as delicious and sun-ripened when you get them out to use, but they are perfectly fine for months of use. They’ll probably still be tastier than anything from the supermarket. Best of all, the skins slide right off if you run the frozen tomatoes under a warm tap when you’re ready to use them.

Growing and making good food takes time, resources, land, and/or space. Not everyone has those things.  I confess to buying two tins this week despite having a million tomatoes at home because I was short on time. 

But, it is also convenient for big food producers and sellers to make us believe that some foods are more complicated to prepare and make than they really are. The shelves at supermarkets are lined with tomato products that are literally just tomatoes or tomatoes with bits added.

Frozen tomatoes are a shortcut to making salsa, ragu, relish, pizza, and pasta sauce. I’ve looked at these things in supermarkets and, until quite recently, assumed some mass-manufacturing magic was required. Passata, sold in jars everywhere, is just crushed tomato with the seeds strained out. I don’t mind seeds, so it’s tomayto, tomahto to me.

Once your tomatoes have been deskinned and defrosted, strain off what looks like excess water. 

What follows are a few no-fuss uses. I apologise in advance to all who can claim a true connection to these foods and lovingly make them in their most perfect form. I have tomato anxiety and limited time.

Instant pizza sauce

Just crush the tomatoes with your hands. Mash if you’re not a fan of touching them. Again, after buying pizza sauce for years, I always thought it involved more ingredients, but crushed tomato, a bit of salt, pepper, and olive oil make for an extremely decent base sauce, and it’s probably closer to “authentic.”

Pasta or pizza sauce

For a big vat of sauce you can freeze, I use a haphazard, scaled up version of Ray McVinnie’s recipe, which involves nothing more than onion, garlic, tomato, olive oil, and seasoning. Finely chop two onions for every 800 grams of tomato (about 12 medium-sized), put a very decent glug of olive oil in a pan and cook the onions and a clove or two of garlic over low heat. That’s the trick. Low and slow. Add the tomatoes when the onion is soft. Stay low and slow until jammy. Freeze, use as pizza sauce or cook any pasta and eat. 

Something close to pico de gallo (a salsa with raw ingredients)

Chop any onion (about a cup), a chilli or jalapeno (jar ones are OK) and put in a bowl with salt and ¼ cup of lime juice. I’ve also used white wine vinegar instead of lime a few times. It’s not the same, but don’t come for me, we’re in a cost of living crisis. Chop 8 or so tomatoes, add capsicum if you like, add coriander if you have some, and you’re done. 

Another salsa thing

Again, salsa-esque, maybe. I cook down a bunch of deskinned frozen tomatoes with onion, capsicum and garlic, add paprika and cumin, and blend once cool. Frozen tomatoes don’t roast well, so this feels like a good alternative to a roasted tomato salsa. 

Soup

I think you can google that. It’s mainly a defrosted tomatoes, onion and stock situation.

Next year, I hope to try growing heirloom tomatoes – maybe just one or two. For now, I’m very happy staving off another round of guilt about an abundance of utilitarian tomatoes by hiding them in the freezer. Bon appetit.