The Extra Step That Makes Peeling Tomatoes A Breeze

Tomatoes are an everyday staple in many cuisines, with an extensive range of uses. Throw them in raw form into a tomato panzanella salad or cook them down into a delectable all-purpose tomato sauce. Most of the time, integrating them into a dish is a breeze, but there is one potential hurdle: peeling. To get that tomato sauce texture silky smooth, you'll want to take off the skin.

There are several methods for the task, like boiling and grating the fruit. However, for the breeziest approach, simply throw the tomatoes into the freezer. Patiently wait overnight, then all you'll need to do is slightly warm up the round red fruit and slide the skin right off. Let them sit at room temperature, and once the melting starts, use your hands to gingerly remove the peel. Alternatively, run the fruit under hot water for a couple minutes, and you'll go from frozen fruit to peeled result rapidly. Either way, this method is especially ideal with a large batch of tomatoes — you can skin many in one go.

Of course, the freezing process does impact the fruit's composition. The tomatoes will have much less moisture, so it's not the move for salads. However, a more concentrated texture does come with its own upsides. Less water leads to a quicker cooking process, making it easier to build the desired sauce. Whether you're after the thicker, puree-like tomato sauce, or thinner marinara (a central difference between the two sauces), you'll need less reduction time on the stove.

Additionally, it's much easier to core the tomato easier whenever it's still slightly frozen, enabling slicing without juice flying around. And if stored at the proper freezer temperature, you'll be able to keep them for around a year — extra bonus points for durability. Just make sure to initially freeze tomatoes that are ripe, with smooth exteriors. Whenever you time the freezing of the fruit right, you'll be able to craft batches of tomato-based product for months to come.