Recipes  

5 Recipes for Your Tomato Surplus

Between the time when you start your tomato seedlings in early spring and the time when the fruit starts to get some colour on the plant, the wait often seems interminable. Then, once the tomatoes have fully matured to their gorgeous red colour, that’s it, it’s already over; they’re (almost) all ready to be picked at the same time! So much so that you’re often left with a tomato surplus. With the 5 following recipes, none of them will end up in the compost!

Canned Tomato Sauce

Canning is a practice that has seen a resurgence in recent years. In this recipe, you’ll transform your tomatoes into a sauce before jarring them, but you can also can whole tomatoes. The operation takes time and preparation, but it’s well worth the effort when you know you’ll have a (delicious) supply for the entire winter!

Grilled Yellow Tomato Chutney

Chutney is a sweet and sour condiment made from fruits or vegetables cooked in vinegar with spices and sugar. This sunny version is made with a mix of grilled yellow tomatoes seasoned with a hint of paprika. This condiment can be kept in the fridge for about one week and goes beautifully with fish.

Tomato Passata

Italian tomatoes are the stars of this recipe. With their thick flesh and low water and seed content, they’re ideal for making a fine purée, like a tomato coulis. Passata, its name in Italian, is a sauce that has 1,001 uses.

Pickled Tomatoes

Marinades come to the rescue to avoid wasting any part of your summer harvest. Pickled cucumbers, pickled beets, pickled turnips: there are a host of recipes for all these vegetables. The same logic is applied to your plants overflowing with cherry tomatoes: turn them into pickled tomatoes! This recipe is perfect to use them all and can also be adapted for larger tomatoes.

Traditional Mexican Salsa

Though its basic preparation is different, the generous texture of a salsa is reminiscent of that of homemade ketchup. Both also have the advantage of a long shelf life, as long as you use sterilized jars. You can also freeze both of them. In adding cumin, paprika and ground coriander, you get a mixture that’s just spicy enough to make everyone happy.

For advice on How to Cook Tomatoes, read this article: