roasted tomatoes

Roasted Tomato Paste Recipe

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Roasted Tomato Paste Recipe

  • 10-15 ripe tomatoes. (any less won’t be worth the work depending on family size)
  • Olive oil and chopped garlic (or oil and garlic from an olive mix in your fridge). Enough to coat all the tomatoes and the pan they roast in.
  • A few sprigs of your favorite (or readily available) herb.
  • Coarse Salt & Pepper.
  1.  Take out all the seeds and pulp from all the tomatoes and place them in a bowl large enough to cover them with water when done. Make sure the pieces are relatively the same size so that they roast as evenly as possible.
  2.  Soak the tomatoes in cold water to remove the seeds and dilute the pulp. This step lends added richness and makes it easier for the tomatoes to caramelize.
  3.  Rinse and drain and let them dry on a towel until the flesh is dryer to the touch. You can pat them dry once in a while but just don’t crush the flesh. the dryer you get them the better. Have a dehydrator? you can use that. Or feel free to put in a super low oven to speed the process. If you are not in a rush just leave them on the towel flesh side up and leave them alone.
  4.  Once dry, toss them in the oil and garlic mixture. Don’t want garlic? Skip it. Feel free to use dried onion or nothing but either adds extra richness to the final results. Spread them on a baking sheet (with a lip please) and add enough oil to cover the pan all over. This stops them from burning and creates a gorgeous tomato oil that can be used in your next dish. It also thins the paste when blending.
  5.  Top them with a few sprigs of your herb of choice. (If using rosemary, nestle it in the oil and tomatoes a bit. Rosemary will burn if just left on top but fleshier leaves like parsley and basil soak up the oil and don’t dry out so much.)
  6.  Roast at 400F for 20 mins.
  7.  Turn temp down to 350F and roast for 30 mins. (If at any time the pan drys out and tomatoes begin to burn just add more oil. Better to have too much than not enough.)
  8.  Turn temp down again and roast at 300F for 30 mins. Starting them on high first and them bringing the temp down in intervals allows you to control the moisture loss and concentrate the flavor as the sugars in the tomatoes caramelize. It’s around now that the house begins to smell like roasted tomatoes.
  9.  When they get to a deep red to garnet color (and the edges start to shrivel as pictured) take them out and cover with a towel to cool. If you are hungry now you can take some of the oil and tomatoes and toss into pasta or rice or lentils. I recommend chopping them up first but it’s your call.
  10.  When the tomatoes are cool to the touch (either that day or the next) you can slide the flesh off the skins (recommended but time consuming.) I want my tomato paste to be smooth and sticky without pieces of skin. But thats just my preference. Try it both ways. But beware. The skins are tricky and the process is messy (which I personally like.) There are ways to get the skins off first but I haven’t tried them yet. I’ll let you know when I do.
  11.  Take the flesh and herbs and oil and blend in a food processor. I have one of the mini ones (cause it was a gift and there’s only two of us).
  12.  Check consistency. If it needs more oil add some. You can also add some “cooking” wine and blend. WARNING: Do not buy in the stuff in the pantry isle. Use real wine from your house that you just didn’t drink. Collect old wine when you think its “dead” and save it for cooking. Keep it in the fridge (red & white in separate bottles) and add to the bottles to keep them topped off.
  13.  At this point you are pretty much done. Add whatever you may want to taste but remember that this will be used as a base for other foods in the future. It shouldn’t taste like anything other than what it is…pure roasted tomatoes.