***Works well unless you're working with as many tomatoes as I am! I found it's easier to cook the chopped tomatoes, seasonings as desired in a stockpot until soft. Then put everything through the food mill, put it back in a large stockpot and boil down until the mixture is the desired consistency. Cool the paste, put in ice cube trays and freeze, then you can empty the frozen cubes of paste into plastic bags and continue freezing until needed.
Homemade Tomato Paste
Tomato paste lends depth and flavor to many dishes.
Credit: André Baranowski
INGREDIENTS
5 lbs. plum tomatoes¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil plus 2 tbsp.
Kosher salt, to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oven to 300° . Roughly chop tomatoes. Heat ¼ cup of the oil in a 12" skillet over high heat. Add tomatoes and season lightly with salt; bring to a boil. Cook, stirring, until very soft, about 8 minutes.2. Pass the tomatoes through the finest plate of a food mill, pushing as much of the pulp through the sieve as possible, leaving the seeds behind.
3. Rub a rimmed 13" x 18" baking sheet with remaining 2 tbsp. of oil; spread tomato purée evenly over sheet. Bake, using a spatula to turn the purée over on itself occasionally, until most of the water evaporates and the surface darkens, about 3 hours. Reduce heat to 250°; cook until thick and brick colored, 2025 minutes.
4. Store sealed in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one month, or freeze, wrapped well in plastic wrap, for up to 6 months.
Ratings & Reviews (4)
Excellent. This is the second tomato season we have made this recipe and the results are amazing. I use a mix of red plum and yellow canning tomatoes, chop and seed, then 12 minutes in the pan after which the stick blender rids me of any errant seeds and skin. Just be sure to watch that last 30 minutes to avoid it overcooking around the edges.
We made this last night with 10 lbs of plum tomatoes from our farm share. We had to cook down the tomatoes a bit further first to fit the whole lot on our biggest baking sheet, so our paste was done in 2.5 hours; the very edges got too dark to save, but everything else ended up beautifully concentrated. We ended up with exactly 2 cups, which we froze in 2 tbsp portions. Totally delicious.
(forgot to leave a rating!)
Homemade Tomato Paste
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