If you do have way too many small tomatoes to eat and you want to do something fun and delicious with them, try drying them in the oven. And if you do it right, you will not be able to tell the difference between your end result and ones that are dried in the sun. (Note: It is very hard to dry much of anything in the sun in our climate here in NC. It is simply too humid. It can be done, but it required patience, the right equipment and a couple of perfect days.)
My method is my own, perfected over many pans of rock hard, overdried tomatoes. You should have pretty good luck if you just pay attention to the details.
First of all, this method is done using your conventional oven. Most home dehydrators do not have any thermostatic controls and so the temperature you are drying at is very hard to control. More expensive dehydrators, like the Excaliburs do have temp controls, however, but are considerably more costly than the
round, plastic ones that most of us have in our cupboards.
The goal is to remove most of the moisture of the tomato, which concentrates the flavor of the tomato. If you start with a so-so tasting fruit, your end result will be a concentrated flavor. If you start with extremely flavorful fruit, the end result will naturally be more intense. There is no need to use oil, salt or herbs during the drying process, unless you just want to do so. I am a purist and tend to keep it simple when making something like this.
Dried herbs and salt do well to add some interesting flavors to the tomatoes, but the oil just makes them harder to dry.
Many recipes for sundried (oven dried) tomatoes suggest that you use Romas, paste types, etc. which is fine if that is what you have to work with. You can even slice and dry large tomatoes using the same method, but you need to adjust for the larger ones. My method is specifically for those the size of grape tomatoes.
So, here is my method. There are storage suggestions, etc. after the instructions.
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees.
- Wash tomatoes and pat them dry. Slice them longways and place them cut side down on a vented pan (a pizza pan, the broiler pan from the oven, anything that has a way to get a little air circulation around the fruits). I have a pizza pan that is tiny holes in it that I have used and a mesh pizza pan that works equally well. If you use a non vented pan, like a cookie sheet, it can take longer for the tomatoes to dry to the degree you want them to be.
One word of caution. Do not use the rack in your oven or anything with large or widely spaced openings. As the tomatoes dry (even big slices), they will shrink and change shape and you do not want them to fall between the openings and end up in the bottom of your oven.
- Put the cut tomatoes (cut side down at this point) in the 200 degree preheated oven. Check them at about an hour of time. You want to see the skins becoming wrinkled and slightly puckered but still red. If they are still pretty smooth, leave them another 20-30 minutes and check them again. After they have been in the oven for about 90 minutes, remove and turn them over so that the cut side is up. At this point, sprinkling with salt, garlic salt, dried herbs, etc. should be done. The tomatoes are still moist and your seasoning will adhere better and blend with the moisture to flavor them more evenly.
If you are using larger tomatoes, your time will probably need to be increased accordingly. The key is not to let them start to cook since you are just trying to dry them. If they are starting to turn dark quickly, they are cooking.
- Turn the oven temperature down slightly before you put the tomatoes back in the oven. This is the trickiest part of this method because the optimum drying temperature is 180 degrees but many ovens simply do not have a setting for 180 on them. "Warm" is about 160 and there is usually a gap between the warm setting and the next temp. Just backing it off a tiny bit, from 200, will get pretty close to the proper temp.
- Put the pan(s) of tomatoes back in the oven and repeat the same timing process as in the first step. Check at 1 hour and again at 20-30 minutes. At this point, the tomatoes should be starting to look like those you see at the market but still relatively bright red. Turn off the oven and leave the tomatoes in it. It takes about 2 hours for the oven to completely cool down and your tomatoes will continue to dry as the temperature comes down.
Check them periodically (every 20-30 minutes) to make sure they are not getting too dark and hard. Opening the oven door lets out some of the heat, so make a visual inspection through the oven window if you can do it that way.
When they are done, the tomatoes should be dark red and wrinkly like raisins, but still pliable and slightly sticky. If they are too brown and crinkly, they are overdone.
To store your oven dried tomatoes, let them cool completely and then put them in ziplock bags or glass jars with an airtight lid. They will keep this way for up to 6 months, if you don't eat them all before then. You could also freeze them for even longer storage times.
Or pack them in a small jar, cover in olive oil and put the lid on tight. You can put in a peeled clove of garlic or some fresh herbs. These should go in the refrigerator and will keep for several months.
I save many of my small condiment jars just for this purpose...baby food jars are okay but the lids don't get airtight enough for long term storage but if you plan on using the tomatoes quickly, they would probably be fine.
