Late in my tomato jarring season, one of WellPreserved’s posts caught my eye.

Dehydrated Tomato Skin and Seeds (Leftovers from Sauce Day)

After jarring every batch of tomatoes and sauce, I found myself looking anxiously at the mountains of leftover material. It should be useful for something, I thought, but didn’t know what until the post: tomato powder. The concept was immediately graspable.

We will store them in large chunks (this will preserve their flavor) in a mason jar with a lid on it (not sealed) and make small batches into powder by quickly freezing it and then blitzing it in a blender of spice grinder.

Dehydrating was simple – we spread out the ingredients (roughly) in the dehydrator and placed it on 125 degrees farenheit for 24 hours. They are complete when they are frail and crunchy.

The primary use of our powder will be an additive to sauce. Dry food acts like a sponge and soaks up the most viscous liquid. In essence, this powder will function like a dehydrated tomato paste.

But sauce alone isn’t going to consume this huge amount of skin. Here’s other uses for tomato powder:

Baking (thinks scones and buns not cake)
Dry rubs
Soup
Stir fry
As an ingredient in homemade noodles
An ingredient in BBQ and other savory sauces
In pizza dough (or on the pizza itself)
As an ingredient added to fermentations to increase the savory/ umami profile of a dish

Perfect. I saved up skins and seeds, laid them out carefully in the dehydrator for 24 hours and stored the product in the freezer. Today, I was setting up an oxtail stew and remembered the frozen dehydrated tomato material and ran it through a spice grinder. About a quarter cup of tomato powder lends really nice flavor to broth.

Any last words, Dehydrated Tomato Skins And Seeds?

I only regret that I was born delicious.

Fantastic stuff! Wish I’d known about it years ago, but at least I know now.