Homemade Tomato Paste- Rustsic & Simple

Homemade tomato paste is rustic, profoundly more flavorful than the canned variety, and simple to make.

Coming into a hoard of fresh heirloom tomatoes is a blessing and a curse. Piles of jewel toned, sun ripened friends to fresh mozzarella and bacon sandwiches is unquestionably a blessing. But processing 40 lbs in a timely manner that respects the freshness and integrity of the tomato is a challenge to put it lightly. You have to make a commitment to those tomatoes. To press on preserving them until every last tomato is used. Which admittedly isn’t for everyone. But I know there are others out there like me. Crazy people who will commit an entire day, if not more, to the heroic job of saving the tomatoes.

Homemade Tomato paste is for lovers

I have never given a second thought to tomato paste. Even in culinary arts school, where we were forced to make everyday products from scratch, we never strayed from the tin canned variety. Oh, how ignorant I was.

Most of you avid readers will know that I like to make my own ketchup, specifically this fermented tomato ketchup , because my daughter eats it constantly. And the main ingredient is tomato paste. Finding an organic/ BPA free tomato paste is neither cheap nor easy so making my own tomato paste seemed like a good investment of my time. What I didn’t expect was for the intense, creamy tomato paste to be one of the most satisfying and delicious things I’ve ever spread on a piece of bread.

If you are a true tomato lover, homemade tomato paste is not to be missed.

Simple yet long.

I always assumed tomato paste would be loads of work. Peeling and deseeding 10 lbs of tomatoes is way more work than I’d like. But making tomato paste was really simple. The only equipment I used was a blender and a fine mesh strainer. You simply simmer the tomatoes, no deskinning or deseeding required, in olive oil for less than 10 minutes, purée the tomatoes, and strain the purée to take out the skin and seeds.

Then there’s the long part. You place the strained purée in two baking pans and put it in the oven to reduce. For hours. If you are using regular paste tomatoes this process may take about 3 hours since paste tomatoes have less liquid in them. If you’re using regular tomatoes like I did, it can take longer. But patience is a virtue, as they say, and sitting around binging on Netflix while your tomato paste gently reduces in the oven is the most virtuous thing around.

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Recipe

Homemade Tomato Paste- Rustsic & Simple

Ingredients

• 10 lbs of tomatoes, paste or romas are best, core removed and cut into large chunks
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• ¼ tsp salt

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F/180 C/4 gas.
2. In a large pot, heat the olive oil on medium heat until it gets hot. And the tomatoes. When you add the tomatoes they will slowly release their juice until the water line comes above the tomatoes. Keep cooking the tomatoes on medium until this liquid comes to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 8 minutes.
3. Using an immersion blender purée the tomatoes until smooth, being careful not to get splattered by hot tomatoes. If you don’t have an immersion blender, allow the tomatoes to cool and bit and purée the tomatoes in a blender in batches, only filling the blender halfway to keep the hot tomatoes from exploding out of the top.
4. Strain the tomato purée through a fine mesh strainer or chinois, scraping the bottom to push all of the liquid through. All that should be left in the strainer are the seeds and skins, which you can discard.
5. Divide the tomato purée between to non-reactive baking sheets (aluminum, copper, non-lined cast iron) and place in the oven for 3 hours. Stir the mixture every hour at first, and more frequently the last hour. If the liquid has not significantly reduced by the second hour you will need to cook the paste an additional hour or two. The time it takes to reduce down is entirely dependent on the kind of tomatoes you use and how much water they have. The paste should be thick and resemble the tomato paste you buy from a can but slightly thinner simply because it is hot.
6. Cool the tomato paste to room temperature or put it in the fridge over night. Using silicon ice cube trays (if you really want to avoid BPA) or BPA free plastic ice cube trays, spoon 2 tablespoons of tomato paste into each hole. Place in the freezer. Once frozen, pop the tomato paste out of the trays (you may have to run them under a little hot water) and store the tomato paste in a glass container or plastic bag in the freezer. Throw the frozen tomato paste into chili or other tomato based dishes. Thaw before using it in ketchup.