Whole tomatoes, frozen without blanching
The zero-effort way to save tomatoes on a night you have none to spare: wash, core, bag. The skins slip off under the tap in January.
Makes
A 4 L freezer bag holds about 2 kg of medium tomatoes
Active time
10 minutes
Total
Overnight to freeze solid
Photo naturalflow on Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0
Before you start
What matters for this one
- Tomatoes are one of the few vegetables that need no blanching before freezing; the skins come off after instead.
- They will be soft and watery when thawed. Frozen tomatoes are for cooking — sauce, soup, stew — not salads or slicing.
- Freeze them bare. Garlic, onion and herbs change in the freezer, some stronger and some weaker; season when you cook.
- Use freezer bags or freezer-grade boxes, not bread bags or yogurt tubs, which let moisture out and freezer burn in.
This follows University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension: Freezing tomatoes (whole, with peels). Quantities, acid and times are theirs; do not scale the vegetables without scaling everything, and do not change the vinegar, lemon juice or processing time.
Ingredients
- Firm, ripe tomatoes of any kind — paste types freeze with less water, but slicers and cherry tomatoes are fine
- Nothing else
Method
- 1
Sort the tomatoes and set aside any that are split or soft for tonight’s supper. Rub the rest clean under cold running water and dry them with a towel — a child can wash and dry while you core.
- 2
Cut out the stem scar and the hard core around it with the tip of a paring knife.
- 3
Set the whole tomatoes, not touching, on a baking sheet and freeze until rock hard, usually overnight.
- 4
Tip the frozen tomatoes into freezer bags, press out as much air as you can, seal and label with the date. Return to the freezer at once.
- 5
To use, run a frozen tomato under warm water for a few seconds and the skin slides off in your hand. Drop into soup, sauce or chili frozen, or thaw in a bowl and pour off the extra liquid for a thicker sauce.
Keeps: About 8 months at −18 °C (0 °F) for best quality. Cook straight from frozen, or thaw in the fridge and use the same day.
Variations: Cherry tomatoes freeze the same way and go into a pan whole to roast from frozen. If you would rather peel first, dip in boiling water about 1 minute until the skins split, slip them, then tray-freeze as above.
Tested source: University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension: Freezing tomatoes (whole, with peels). Checked October 2026. If a jar did not seal, refrigerate it and use it within a few days. Never taste anything from a jar that is bulging, leaking, spurting or smells wrong — when in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
The crop
Tomatoes: when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Tomatoes are the home canner’s classic, but they sit right on the acidity line: every tested canned-tomato recipe adds bottled lemon juice or citric acid to each jar, and that is not optional whether you water-bath or pressure can. Whole tomatoes freeze well with no blanching — the skins slip off under the tap as they thaw — which is the fastest way to deal with a glut on a weeknight. Cherry and paste tomatoes dry beautifully. What does not work is a sauce you have thickened with flour or loaded with extra peppers, onions and oil to taste: the added low-acid vegetables change the safety of the recipe, so follow a tested salsa or sauce recipe exactly. Green tomatoes are more acidic than ripe ones and can be canned by the same recipes, with the same added acid.
More for tomatoes
- Water-bath canning
Crushed tomatoes, water-bath canned
The plainest, most useful jar in the pantry: tomatoes and nothing else, ready for any sauce in February.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 10 kg (22 lb) of tomatoes; 6.4 kg (14 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
The recipe → - Water-bath canning
Whole or halved tomatoes in juice, water-bath canned
Whole peeled tomatoes under their own juice — the jar you open for a winter stew when you want pieces, not purée.
7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9.5 kg (21 lb) of tomatoes, plus extra tomatoes for the juice; 5.9 kg (13 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
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Plain tomato sauce, water-bath canned
Unseasoned tomato sauce boiled down from juice — thin for soups, thick for pasta — with every flavour decision left for the day you open it.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars of thin sauce from 16 kg (35 lb) of tomatoes, or of thick sauce from 21 kg (46 lb); for 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars use 9.5 kg (21 lb) thin or 12.7 kg (28 lb) thick · 2 hours active
The recipe →