We plant a lot of tomatoes because they are very versatile for so many recipes we like. Thanks to some great tools, I am able to use them in a variety of ways in the kitchen.

I have canned, dehydrated, pickled, frozen and added tomatoes to a plethora of recipes. As I was looking into some spice mixtures, I learned that you can also dehydrate them and grind them down to a spice to add to all sorts of recipes!

I have been wanting to try this since last fall after I had already processed all my tomatoes. I didn’t feel like making it with store-bought tomatoes, so I have been patiently waiting. And the time has finally come to test it out.

I was making some salsa the other day, peeling all my tomatoes, and decided that I was going to dehydrate all the skins to see if I could process them to a powder. I always hated throwing out the skins when it seemed like a good part of the tomato that could still be used for something.

As I peeled the tomatoes, I began filling my dehydrator trays, quickly filling them up. I made sure to leave room between the peels so that there was still some good airflow.

I couldn’t find any recipes or blogs that noted the temperature to dehydrate the tomatoes at. I was concerned about burning them since they are quite thin. So, to be safe I put the dehydrator at 115.

For the first hour or so, I was a constant peeper, checking to make sure that the heat wasn’t too hight. I know…115F is really not that high of a temperature, but I have had items discolour on me in the dehydrator due to high temps, and I really wanted to keep that bright red colour.

Finally after fretting away for a bit, I realized that the temperature was good and that I should just leave it be so that it could do its thing. Besides, I am going to be doing a few more batches of salsa, so worst case, I just make a few more batches at a different temperature.

Because the skins were thin, and I wasn’t dehydrating any of the meat of the tomato, they dehydrated quite quickly. It only took about 3 hours for them to be crispy.

Now consistency is definitely part of the key to this task. If you want a nice powder, then you need it to be crispy and colourful. If it has any bend to it, keep dehydrating. You want it to fall apart like a sandcastle in a high tide…crumbling down to small little bits.

Ta-da! Now I just had to break it down. Well, this is another curve in the learning of dehydrating tomato powder! I figured putting it through my food processor or my little miniature chopper would bring it down to a fine powder. For about 80% of the peel, it did bring it down to a nice fine powder, but I just couldn’t get it to fully break down.

Sure, I could have left it with a few little chunks…they weren’t big. Actually, quite small, but I really wanted a full powder. Plus I plan on making some beet powder and anticipate the same issue.

So, I went an got a cheap little coffee/herb grinder. It actually noted that it is good for breaking down herbs. Some of the reviews did note that it did a really good job of making powder, but if you wanted a more coarse chop, that it could be a little too efficient in breaking down the item being ground.

I zipped the ground powder that I had with 3 quick presses of the button. That is all it took! The reviewer certainly wasn’t over-exaggerating. So now I know, I will only use the grinder when I want a powder. I will use my food processor for a coarse grain chop.

Now, if you are wondering what I am going to use this powder for, that is a great question. Some ideas that I have for it’s use are:

• Ketchup chip or nacho chip seasoning for homemade chips
• Adding to soups for some extra condensed tomato flavour
• Rice dishes like Mexican rice or Spanish rice
• Creating tomato paste as needed rather than buying cans of it
• Making sandwich or bagel spreads
• Adding to bread
• Making other spice mixes or rubs
• Adding it to chili
• Making ketchup
• Making some drinks or adding it to drinks for extra flavouring
• Try my hand at dehydrated meals
• And more…

If I find any fun recipes that really work well with the powder, I will certainly be sharing on this blog.