Homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes in the Dehydrator

homemade sun-dried tomatoes

Maybe I should just do a series on what to do with too many garden vegetables and fruits. We are overflowing with cucumbers, basil, squash, mint, oranges, and much more. But what we have the most of right now (which of course don't have a long shelf life) is TOMATOES! It's seriously tomato mania over here. We're making everything we can with tomatoes - salsa, pasta sauce, broiled tomatoes, tomato cucumber salad, caprese...you name it, we've probably made it. And lucky for Brian, this tomato bounty has inspired us to make one of his favorite foods - Sundried Tomatoes!

It's amazing what a transformation of flavor takes place when tomatoes are dried! Delicious! And, this is the perfect way to make a little dent in our tomato overflow. While we do live in sunny San Diego, sun-drying tomatoes requires at least 100 degrees of sunny, dry heat. Well, we live at the beach, and while the rest of the country is melting, I've been shivering...in the middle of August! Apparently global warming means coastal cooling here. Lately we haven't seen much sun due to the marine layer, and it hasn't gotten much above 70 degrees...if that. I can't complain much, because we do enjoy better weather than the rest of the country most of the year, and it's probably a welcome relief for many tourists coming from super hot places like my hot and humid stomping grounds of Virginia.

All it really means for us is we've gotta dry our tomatoes in the dehydrator instead of in the real sun. No biggie! Here's a video showing you how easy it is to make sun-dried tomatoes in your dehydrator.



My favorite part about this video is that halfway through, our roommate turned on the super noisy washer and Brian started blaring Santana on the record player...thanks guys! It was my first shot at making a complete video with the Flip camera, so there is of course a learning curve ;)

In case you can't view the video, here is a basic recipe for
Homemade Sun-dried Tomatoes Using a Dehydrator  

1. Clean and slice the tomatoes (if you have small roma or cherry tomatoes you can just halve them)
2. Place on dehydrator trays with at least 1" between the slices.
3. Set your dehydrator for 140 degrees and dry until there is no moisture left and they are leathery (check them after 6 hours, but ours took more like 16 hours - this all depends on your tomatoes, your dehydrator, the sizes of the slices etc).
4. Store in an airtight container - I recommend using a food saver to vacuum seal them.
5. When you are ready to eat them, you'll want to slightly rehydrate them by putting them in a bowl and pouring boiling water over them - let sit for 8-10 minutes, or let sit for 30 minutes in room temperature water.

Slice em up and throw em on pizza, salads, omelets, pasta....anything you want :)

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