Use Your Dehydrator To Make Dried Tomato Skin Powder
Yep, I said dried tomato skin powder!
Granted, it might sound a bit odd, but bear with me for a moment.
If you’ve ever processed lots and lots of tomatoes, you know you end up with a huge pile of tomato skins.
They are easily composted or fed to chickens if you have them, but there’s one more way you can use them…
…they can be dried and then powdered for your own use!
How neat is that! Very neat, I think.
So how do you do it? It’s simple! It helps if you have a good dehydrator like my beloved Excalibur 3900, but you can do these in your oven or even set on a tray in a warm non-humid place.
How To Make The Tomato Skin Powder
- Lay out your skins on the dehydrator trays or on a cookie sheet covered with wax or parchment paper. You don’t want them to pile up on each other but they don’t need to be far apart, and it’s okay to overlap them a little.
- Set the dehydrator to 130 degrees and let it run overnight, or until the skins are brittle and shatter easily. If using your oven, either set it to the lowest setting or just even put the light on, depending on what your low setting is.
- Once the tomato skins are fully dried, throw them all in a bowl, crush them up a bit, and then use your blender to finely pulverize them. If you have a good blender like a Vitamix 5200 or something that ought to be no problem at all.
Easy peasy! The powdered tomato skins will last for about 6 months if kept in a dry and dark place, longer if sealed away from oxygen.
Uses For Tomato Skin Powder
You can use the resulting powder to add to soups, omelets, sausage, casseroles, meatloaf, pretty much anything. It can be used to thicken sauces, make dips, or even homemade bread and tortillas.
This tomato skin powder is very high in lycopene which is an antioxidant and is full of other vitamins and minerals. It’s also a fantastic way to add a shot of tomato flavor without adding excess moisture to whatever you’re cooking.
Making tomato skin powder is a little more work, and I know it can seem like a lot after you’ve just been processing lots and lots of tomatoes, but it is really a great way to reduce your waste even further and stretch your food dollar.
If you liked this post, feel free to help me take over the world spread the word by sharing it using the buttons below!
Join our mailing list - don't miss out!
We'll even bribe you with the recipe for our delectable Softhouse sugar cookie recipe!
You are going to love our subscriber-only recipes, tutorials, reviews, and more.
Filed under: Bethany's Tips
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Hey – I just wanted to say that I bring in my tomatoes, wash them, take out any nasties and then slice them and dry them whole in the dehydrator. I put the slices in jars for storage. I pull out some and add them to canned tomatoes to whir up a sauce in the blender or I pulverize them to make a tomato sauce or tomato paste easily and add whatever flavorings/spices as I go. I do not peel tomatoes or anything before dehydrating – why go thru all that work?? I also use a Champion juicer – but I’m pretty sure any kind would work. I wash and halve my tomatoes (found that some paste types might have something lurking in the middle) and I “juice” them. The skins/seeds come out and I have this lovely tomato puree – I then put the puree to drain in a flour sack over a colander over a pan to catch the water. When done to my desired thickness I can either dehydrate, freeze or can – using the basic recipes. Just a few thoughts to make your life easier. I hardly can at all now – Drying just lasts longer and takes up less space! MW