How to Make Your Own Sun Dried Tomatoes
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Hello and welcome to The Slow Roasted Italian. Today I would like to share with you one of my favorite foods. I am a tomato lover through and through. I love them fresh, baked, cooked on the stove top, and I especially love Sun-dried tomatoes. I eat the Rosemary Basil Sun-dried Tomatoes like candy (they are THAT good)!
These are simply sun-dried tomatoes like you would buy in the store. Except these are all natural and have no additives or preservatives. They are so simple that I would NEVER buy these in the store. The batch pictured above I chose to dehydrate without the seeds because I am planning on grinding them into tomato powder to be used like tomato paste. However you can dry them with seeds and they can be kept in the freezer.
I use my Excalibur dehydrator which does a fantastic job of drying. I really just put them on the trays and forget them. After many hours of drying I check on them. I use the Excalibur 3900 and I can fit 15 tomatoes on each tray. I can dry 4 trays at a time (because of the height).
OVEN NOTE: You can also dry these in your oven. Set oven to 135° and place tomatoes on a cooling rack set onto a baking 1/2 sheet. Bake for 8-18 hours, depending on whether you remove the seeds or not. Removing the seeds makes dehydration much faster.
Enjoy!
With love, from our simple kitchen to yours.
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Other Easy Tomato Recipes
Sun-dried Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 60 Roma tomatoes, ripe
Instructions
- Fill your sink with warm soapy water and wash tomatoes thoroughly. (Remember you are eating the skins, you want them nice and clean).
- Remove from water and rinse. Core tomatoes and slice in half vertically.
- Place tomatoes on trays. You can fit 30 tomato halves on each of the Excalibur trays.
- Place them in dehydrator and allow to dry for 12 -18 hours, until they have no moisture remaining in the tomato.
- Place in an air tight container and store in the pantry/refrigerator/freezer to be used as needed. They will keep for at least 1 year in the refrigerator/freezer. Storing in the pantry, in a cool and dark place, they will keep for at least 1 year. However if there is ANY moisture present it can cause mold to grow. So, to be safe I store them in my freezer.
- Enjoy!
Donna’s Notes
Nutrition
All nutritional information is based on third party calculations and is only an estimate. Each recipe’s nutritional value will vary depending on the ingredients used, measuring methods, and portion sizes.
Originally published March 2012
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Very nice post – I have a dehydration mode built right into my oven but I've never used it – you have me inspired now!
One of my favorite things on earth to eat! I would love that Excaliber thing! I roast tons of tomatoes in my oven, but these are much drier because mine are doused in olive oil. Can't wait for home-grown tomatoes!
How long would they need to stay in the oven if you don't happen to have an excalibur on hand? 🙂
OVEN NOTE: You can also dry these in your oven. Set oven to 135° and place tomatoes on a cooling rack set onto a baking 1/2 sheet. Bake for 8-18 hours, depending on whether you remove the seeds or not. Removing the seeds makes dehydration much faster.
Hope that helps! Thanks for stopping by.
What a great post!!! It's great to know how things are done!!!
Mary x
What variety do you find works best? I grew Principe Borghese because I read they were a good variety for drying but I'm still working though the drying process.
I use the Roma's that are on sale at our market, any plum type tomato or paste tomato would be lovely. Let us know how it goes.
Yeah, so great to know this! I worked on the preservation of tomatoes by drying as my final year project for my BSc Food Science degree and I really loved it. I am equally impressed by this Excalibur approach. Thank you
You don't state a temperature for the excalubur
how long would i do tem in my oven? I have no dehydrator at this time.
what temperature do you dry them in the excalibur
i think 120F
Thanks
I love sun dried tomatoes, and these turned out great. Thank you so much.