How to Make Tomato Powder from Canned Tomatoes
If you’ve ever wanted to know how to make tomato powder, here is a great tomato powder recipe to get you started! If you have no idea what tomato powder is, and why you might want it, read on. We have those answers too. This recipe uses canned tomatoes for an easy to make, intensely flavored, beautifully brick-red, umami powder, that is nothing more or less than the essence of tomato.
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Tomato Powder- A New Spice for your Spice Rack!
I am a new user of tomato powder, and a total fan! It’s sort of a dual purpose spice, plus a dried tomato for whenever you need to reconstitute a tomato sauce. All it really is is tomatoes, dehydrated, and ground into a powder. So simple! Tomatoes have a whole lot of umami flavor to them- that amazing savory goodness from amino acids. It also has a great mix of sweet and tart, resulting in something tangy. I love that it has a really concentrated tomato flavor- just the tiniest bit brings a whole lot of tomato flavor to your mouth. It also makes it possible to get the flavor of tomato without the wetness of tomato – homemade tomato flavored potato chips, anyone?
How to Use Tomato Powder
Now that you’ve got tomato powder, what do you do with it? One of my favorite things to do with it is make pizza popcorn- I put my recipe for that below. Tomato powder can also be reconstituted into a paste or a sauce, and the really fine powder can even be diluted into tomato juice. It’s perfect for adding rich, tomato flavor into broths and stews. You can also add some to a homemade seitan for some added umami goodness. Bake it into scones, breads, or biscuits for flavor and color. Work it into a pasta dough. Make the easiest pasta ever by sprinkling it on top of some noodles with vegan butter. Use it to coat a vegan cheese. Top a hummus. Add it to your BBQ rub. Marinate a little tofu with it. Sprinkle atop a sandwich. Try a little in chocolate cake- I’ve never tried it, but I hear it adds an amazing richness!
Pizza Popcorn Recipe
Here’s my favorite bonus recipe for you all- it’s not a real recipe, in part because I’ve never bothered to measure any of the ingredients, but here’s the general idea. Get some freshly popped popcorn. Melt some vegan butter in the microwave. Pour the melted butter over the popcorn, and then sprinkle on:
- tomato powder
- nutritional yeast
- garlic powder
- oregano (or basil)
- salt
- pepper
Toss it all around, taste it, adjust any of the flavors to your liking, and that’s it. You’ve made yourself a batch of what I have decided to call “Valerie’s Famous Vegan Pizza Popcorn”. You can declare your own recipe that you’ve made for no one but your boyfriend as being famous, right?
How to Make Tomato Powder from Canned Tomatoes
You can make tomato powder from fresh tomatoes, tomato skins, tomato paste, and of course from canned tomatoes. We made ours from canned tomatoes, since fresh tomatoes are not in season, and it was cheaper than using tomato paste. Also, wanna know a little secret about canned tomatoes? They were canned ripe. Most fresh tomatoes are picked green, transported, and then exposed to ethylene gas to artificially ripen them, and it just doesn’t taste the same as a sun ripened tomato. Locally grown tomatoes are, of course, an exception. But canned tomatoes are usually picked ripe, and canned right away, and as a result they often taste better. So no shame in using the cans.
The key to making tomato powder is a dehydrator. We have an old one that’s been passed down a few times, and is still plugging away quite well. Set your dehydrator at 135 degrees Fahrenheit (which is the fruit setting on my dehydrator). I chop my tomatoes in half, and then whack them down right onto the dehydrator trays. And then we wait- mine were mostly dry after 24 hours, but there were a few that had a little juiciness left so I ended up leaving them for probably about 6 more hours. Then blend it all up. If you want, you can use a fine metal strainer to separate the more chunky bits from the super fine powder. Store it in an air tight container so it doesn’t clump, and you’re ready to start using tomato powder on everything!
How to Make Tomato Powder from Canned Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 3 28 oz. cans of peeled whole tomatoes
Instructions
- Set your dehydrator to 135°F (60°C).
- Open cans of tomatoes and drain the liquid, and rinse off the tomatoes. Chop the tomatoes in half, and place them on dehydrator trays. Move to the dehydrator and dry for 24-36 hours. After about 12 hours, flip the tomatoes in the dehydrator. Wait until the tomatoes feel totally dry and hard.
- Place the dried tomatoes in a food processor, spice grinder, or blender. Process until a fine powder. If desired, sift the powder through a mesh strainer. Reserve the larger pieces for soups and stews, and other recipes where they will be rehydrated. Use the fine powder for sprinkling (like on popcorn), or mix with water to create a tomato juice.
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Thanks for the recipe. I was able to get large 28 oz cans of to atoes for $.50, so this is an awesome way to use some of them and save shelf space.
What a great deal! Glad you can use this recipe to save some space!
I was able to do this with a few cases of low salt Hunts tomatoes I bought at Grocery Outlet, 10 28-0unce cans for $1.00! They are drying beautifully in my mesh outdoor drier in the 100-degree weather here. One problem though is that American tomatoes use citric acid in the can as a preservative, and this gets more concentrated as the liquid gets concentrated. I don’t like the taste of citric acid, it is different from the natural acidic flavor/balance of the tomato. You can add a pinch of baking soda to make it less pronounced.
That’s an amazing deal on tomatoes, it makes me wish I still lived near a Grocery Outlet! And great tip for using baking soda to neutralize the acidity from the citric acid, I may give it a try next time.