Sun-dried tomato question

[corazon]

its been about 2 weeks since I put a jar of sun dried tomatoes in the fridge. Everything in the jar solidified. If I take them out and bring back to room temp, will they be alright?

What is the proper way to store a jar of opened sun dried tomatoes?

 

[babetoo]

its been about 2 weeks since I put a jar of sun dried tomatoes in the fridge. Everything in the jar solidified. If I take them out and bring back to room temp, will they be alright?

What is the proper way to store a jar of opened sun dried tomatoes?

i am thinking fridge is fine to store. don't see why they would not be ok.

babe

 

[Katie H]

I've always stored mine in the refrigerator and they solidify just like yours did. After they are warmed up to room temp, they are fine again. Sometimes to hurry the process I'll put the jar into a bowl of warm water.

 

[pdswife]

They should be fine. ENJOY!

 

[corazon]

Thanks to all of you.
How long will they keep in the fridge?

 

[Clienta]

I love sundried tomatoes so they never last long in my fridge. If you always use a clean spoon or fork to get them out of the jar & nothing contaminates them, they will last a long time. Enjoy.

 

[ronjohn55]

Cora, I'm guessing these are packed in oil? I'd say they're fine, it's just oil being oil.

We make "sun" dried tomatoes in our dehydrator, and just store them in a covered bowl in the basement (cool, dry place). Sadly, they never usually make it through the winter (I think we have enough for one more dinner using them).

John

 

[QSis]

John, would you please say more about how you prep and store the tomatoes? I would like to do some next season.

Are they plum tomatoes?

Lee

 

[ronjohn55]

John, would you please say more about how you prep and store the tomatoes? I would like to do some next season.

Are they plum tomatoes?

Lee

Yep, those are the preferred ones. We wash them, cut them in half, and then scoop out the seeds and "goop", leaving pretty much just the flesh. We set them on the dehydrator, salt them, and then dehydrate them at about 95 degrees. Usually takes 3-4 days. That's about it.

 

[jpmcgrew]

I also dehydrate my home grown tomatoes no romas but just regular tomatoes I slice them about 1/2 inch thick leave them just as they are, sprinkle with sea salt. Mine take less than 24 hours to dry. I store them in glass jars and zip locs.

 

[corazon]

do you have to re-hydrate them before using? I'd like to try out making my own.

Lol rohnjohn, every year I make twice as much jam as last time and we still manage to run out in January.

 

[jpmcgrew]

You need to rehydrate in hot water and chop or not for things like pizza , brushetta etc. If you use them for soups,stews etc just crunch them up or leave whole. Lots of flavor.They are even good eaten on their own kind of like a tomato chip.

 

[ronjohn55]

Hmm... We don't rehydrate ours. They're usually a chewy "leather-like" texture, and we just usually rough chop them and add them to whatever we're making.

I agree with the lots of flavor statement, too.

 

[pacanis]

Good post.
I bought sundried tomatoes once. Didn't use them all up before I had thought they went bad in my fridge. Now I see they were still good. I kind of wondered how something that was dehydrated could "spoil".....

 

[suziquzie]

I had instructions once for drying them in the oven, at something like 200 and you stick a wooden spoon in the door to leave it open a crack. I tried it but I dont think they were right.
Anyone else done that?

 

[pacanis]

I've made jerky that way. You need to crack the door so the humidty escapes.

 

[xmascarol1]

ditto on drying

the descriptions of drying are how we do them, but in years past we used to have so many tomatoes, that we'd dry at least a bushel. One year there were so many I ended up drying 4 bushels. Most of them I dried to very crispy and then pulverized them in the blender (no processors back then) and had this wonderful tomato powder to use. 3 bushels of tomato flavor fit into 1 five pound cottage cheese container!