Tomatoes are not only delicious, they are filled to the brim with nutrients.

In order to prolong the life span of the produce as food, there are many ways to preserve the tomato. Letting it dry out and spend the rest of it's glorious life in oil is one of them, and it also happens to be the topic of this instructable.

I'm fond of growing my own vegetables, and though I enjoy picking a tomato right from the vine in late summer, I have started to explore how I can save them and still being able to eat my home grown vegetables in the colder months.

DISCLAIMER!

The title is full of lies and deceit. Since I do not live in Italy (or any mediterranean country) I use an oven to dry the tomatoes. Even though Sweden is rather hot this time of year, I suggest you do the same.

I will not only walk you through the drying process, I will also glance over the vast topic of disinfecting your jars for the purpose of canning or pickling food.

Supplies

You will need:

Plum tomatoes (I used about 1 kg, roughly 2 pounds)
Jar(s), preferably with air tight seal.
Olive oil
Baking sheet
Oven paper
Oven
Salt

Optional:

Garlic clove(s)
Some dried herbs
Vinegar

Step 1: Cut the Tomatoes

Start by halving the tomatoes and then scoop out the watery center of the tomato using a spoon. I ate this as I went but you can discard this if you want.

I removed the little stem-thingy with two angled cuts but I won't judge you if you don't want the hassle.

Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet covered with oven paper. Salt the tomatoes a little bit, this will help dry out the moisture. I also sprinkled them with a little bit of freshly cracked black pepper for taste but that's up to you.

(Side note)

If you wish to experiment with growing yourself, you can take the scooped part with the seeds and place it on kitchen paper and let it dry. Then pick out the tomato seeds and grow a new plant!

Step 2: Drying the Tomatoes

Heat your oven to ~100 C (~210 F) and place your tomatoes in the middle to lower levels. If you have a convection oven, you can leave the door shut since air will escape naturally but if you have a regular oven I recommend placing a kitchen towel or a sturdy wooden spoon or something in between the oven opening and the door, to let air escape as you dry.

How long they will be in there really depends of how much moisture is in the at the start. Check on the tomatoes now and agian, they shouldn't char at the edges but they will develop a darker color and that's okay. The texture you are looking for is a tough, bendable consistency. They should not be soft, nor hard, but something in the middle. That's quite a riddle but it is not the end of the world if they are a little bit under- or overcooked.

They will probably need at least 3 hours and up to 7. A low and slow drying is easier to control.

As you can see in the picture, mine went a little bit too long because I got stuck watching tv and forgot about them. Woops. But they still turned out great!

Remove from the oven when done and let cool bit.

Step 3: Disinfecting Vessels

I have a couple of snap lid jars at home wich I occasionally use for canning vegetables wich are great because the become air tight when you close them.

Whichever vessel you decide to go with, you want to get it disinfected first. (If your are going to eat them shortly after drying you can skip this step, like 1-3 days or something)

There are mainly to ways of disinfecting without the use of chemicals (I prefer to not use chemicals when I can).

You can boil your jars or you can heat them in your oven. If you have a lot of jars to disinfect at the same time I would recommend oven but for a smaller number of jars I usually go with boiling (and my oven is occupied with tomatoes).

Oven method:

Place your jars on a baking sheet and put them inside a cold oven. If your jars have metal lids or rubber seals, remove them and use the boiling technique for them, they are not well suited for oven use.

Turn the oven on at 100 C (~210 F) and when it comes to temperature, set a timer for 20 minutes.

If you are going to store something hot in them, carefully take them out of the oven and fill them right away.

If you are storing something cold in them, turn the oven off and let everything cool down before taking out the jars.

Boiling method:

Place your jars, lids and rubber seals in a big pot with cold water, enough to submerge everything. Put on the stove and turn on medium-high. When it starts to boil, lower the temperature so that you maintain a boil but a smooth boil, almost simmer the jars to avoid the bouncing around in the pot and potentially crack. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

Turn off the stove and pick them up when you can safely do so and place them on a clean kitchen towel to dry.

Step 4: Fill the Jars

Place some tomatoes in a jar. Smash a garlic clove and add half of it to the jar. Sprinkle some dried herbs (I went with thyme and a little pinch of chili flakes. I wanted to add basil also but I forgot to buy any). Add more tomatoes, the rest of the garlic, more herbs and repeat until all the tomatoes are in the jar.

Top with olive oil, I recommend using a "good one" but they tend to be pricier so use what you have.

Fill up the jar so everything is covered and place in the fridge when everything is cool. They will potentially store for quite some time. Like with everything you make yourself, it is hard to say exactly what the shelf life is, but as long as they don't smell weird or taste weird, you're good to go (DISCLAIMER I am by no means an expert on this).

Optional:

If you want to improve the shelf life a little bit, you can add a couple of glugs of vinegar to your oil (I would recommend no more than a third of the amount of oil but that's personal). The acidity of the vinegar keeps any unwanted microorganisms at bay and you may enjoy your tomatoes for even longer!

Step 5: Enjoy!

My favorite use of sun dried tomatoes are cut up in a nice salad with some feta cheese or on some lightly toasted bruschetta style bread.

How you want to devour them is up to you but I hope you will give this a try and let me know in the comment section what you thought of it.