hey everyone it's Joey from the Prairie homestead calm and today I'm going to show you how to freeze Tomatoes no blanching required so I've been out in the garden harvesting tomatoes these are more Tomatoes than we can handle eating on a day to day basis but it's not enough to can or preserve quite yet so when it comes to this I'll either dehydrate them and I'll post a link to my sun-dried tomato tutorial in the show notes or I can freeze them now I am NOT a fan of fussy preservation methods I don't like blanching I don't like skinning things I don't like peeling I don't like anything that requires tons of tedious time in the kitchen so I know there's a lot of techniques out there that call for blanching the tomatoes first and that's where you dunk them in boiling water and then dunk them in ice water and remove the skins and I suppose if you're very very adverse to Tomatoes skins for some reason you can do that and then go ahead and freeze them but for me I don't mind a little bit of tomatoes skin here or there and I find that really doesn't bother us and the finish dishes it's not too tough it's not really annoying we don't even really notice it so for me that really tedious step of blanching and dunking and peeling just isn't worth the hassle so I've stumbled across this very simple freezing method and this is what I've been doing for years this allows me to preserve small amounts of tomatoes at a time and I can even just save them up in the freezer until I'm ready to make a big pot of sauce or spaghetti or whatever so let me show you exactly how this works so the first thing you'll want to do is make sure you're selecting tomatoes that aren't super mushy now a little soft is okay but avoid the ones that are really really squishy and juicy so I pick the ones that are a little bit more on the firm side but still ripe and after that look at the tomatoes a quick wash will cop any stems and any spots that might be bad on the tomatoes so if you had a tiny tree tomatoes you can actually just freeze those whole if you have larger Tomatoes or even something like a Roma or a paste tomato these are my favorite type of tomato to grow because they aren't as juicy and they're great for sauces and pastes you can quarter them or have them and that just makes them fit in the bag a little bit easier so once you go through your tomatoes and you remove the stems and you cut them in half or in quarters now we'll want to de-seed them now this is a lot fancier than it sounds and all I do to de-seed my tomatoes is basically run my fingers along the flesh of the tomato and scrape out any seeds and juice I don't try to get every last bit just the majority that's in there and the reason I do this is to avoid the tomatoes turning into a giant frozen mass once I put them in my freezer bags now once you've deseeded your tomato pieces you can flash freeze them for thirty to sixty minutes if you like so this means just lay them out on a cookie sheet pop them in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes or until they're partially frozen and then you can transfer them over to a gallon size freezer bag this just keeps them from sticking together and becoming a giant tomato clump in the freezer now I'm a little bit lazy so I like to skip that method and I actually just stick my tomato pieces right in the freezer bag pop it in the freezer in the bar and that's it now to use these Tomatoes when you're ready to make a giant batch of sauce you can pull them out of the freezer stick them right in your pan sometimes if I even have some fresh tomatoes and then a couple bags of frozen Tomatoes I'll stick them all in the stockpot at the same time let them all come to the same temperature and then start adding my seasonings and my herbs and that is where I begin my tomato sauce process you can also use these frozen Tomatoes just a few at a time if you want to make my very favorite fast sauce this is like a 15 minute tomato sauce it's amazing the flavors are bright and crisp and it's not exactly the same as an all-day summer tomato sauce but it's pretty darn amazing and I'm gonna link to that video in the show notes as well and there you have it guys two fries tomatoes the fast and easy way for more homes that kitchen tips be sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to be notified when we post a new video every Tuesday thanks for watching get that one if you want yeah I like to get a little you