Last Updated on October 23, 2024 by Michelle
It’s the end of harvest season and my kitchen has been abuzz, making lots of pasta sauce from dehydrated tomatoes these days.
I’ve been doing this for many years, using tomatoes that I sliced, and then dehydrated, and then powdered and added seasoning. More about that dehydrated tomato powder here.
Then I discovered the hack that rocked my world. Seriously.
Make homemade pasta sauce without canning
I’ll just say it. I hate canning.
But I reserve a special disdain for canning pasta sauce. I hate slaving over a large boiling pot of tomatoes aaaall day. Man those tomatoes take forevah to boil down.
But, I’ll be honest, it also takes a lot of time to thinly slice a counter-full of tomatoes and line the slices up on dehydrator trays. So, while meticulously slicing hundreds of tomatoes beat out canning them, it was still time-consuming.
Then it rocked my world when Kayla asked me a question this summer…
She had seen me dehydrate strawberries over the years, watching me run the berries thought my blender and dehydrate the liquified berries. So she–very wisely–asked “why couldn’t you puree the tomatoes instead of slicing them?”
Can you dehydrate pureed tomatoes?
Kayla’s simple question rocked my world… not to mention freed up many hours of my time this summer. I tried it hesitantly, but it worked beautifully. I’ve never looked back, and I’ve never again stood at the counter slicing dozens of tomatoes super thin.
To puree your tomatoes before dehydrating them, simply wash them and remove any stems and cut off any bad spots. Then toss them, as whole tomatoes (no need to cut them at all) into your blender. If you have a vacuum sealed blender like mine, you’ll have the most nutritious tomato sauce possible, since zero nutrients will be lost by the agitation of the blender.
What tomatoes make the best pasta sauce?
I grew 92 tomato plants this summer, more than a dozen varieties, and with this method of making tomato sauce I can tell you that genuinely every variety of tomato works well. If you’re boiling your tomatoes to can them, you want to stick with a few specific varieties so they boil down faster for you, but this method of dehydrating pureed tomatoes opens the door to using genuinely ANY tomato varieties that you’d like.
Because I love a gorgeous tossed salad and homemade pico de gallo, I love to grow ALL colors of tomatoes.
This does mean that my powder and resulting pasta sauce will sometimes be an unusual color… and my tomato puree is often an odd yellowy orange color… but wow, it tastes delicious.
Are cherry tomatoes good for dehydrating?
Typically I’m not a huge fan of dehydrating cherry tomatoes. Only because they take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to dehydrate, even if you’re cutting them in half before placing them in the dehydrator.
But if you’re pureeing them first, then dehydrating them as a “sheet” of pureed tomatoes, cherry tomatoes work great for dehydrating into tomato sauce.
How do you use dehydrated tomato powder?
Before sharing my recipe for tomato sauce, I want to point out the straight up dehydrated tomato powder is amazing. I will always keep some of my tomato powder plain so I can use it in other ways, not just for making tomato sauce.
10 ways to us dehydrated tomato powder:
- sprinkle on scrambled eggs
- add to homemade broth
- use it to thicken up a soup
- thicken up gravy
- make a V-8 kind of kombucha
- add it to a salad dressing
- include some in your homemade lazagna noodles
- sprinkle it on your soup when serving, like this squash soup
- make tomato-flavored homemade tortillas
- sprinkle it on your veggies before serving, like garlic pepper Brussels sprouts
Dehydrated pasta sauce
INGREDIENTS
1 cup dehydrated tomato powder (learn how here)
1 tsp dehydrated pepper powder
1/2 tsp dried basil
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
4 tsp coconut sugar
1 tsp onion powder
DIRECTIONS
Mix all ingredients well.
Spoon into a container with an air-tight seal and keep for up to 1-2 years.
To make sauce, use 1 part tomato mix with 2-4 parts water (less for paste, more for sauce).
Notes on using your dehydrated pasta sauce
- I will use 3-4 TB of the powder mix to make enough sauce for one pizza.
- And 3 TB of the powder for one plate of pasta.
- 12 TB of the powder makes 3 cups, or about the amount of sauce in a jar you purchase at the store.
- I shared an alternative recipe here: Pasta sauce with dehydrated tomatoes
