Dehydrated Cherry Tomatoes
Dehydrated Cherry Tomatoes transform a handful of your everyday tomatoes into tiny bits of joy intensely concentrated with flavor. It’s easy to preserve the sunny days of summer by making sun dried cherry tomatoes in your oven.
Delight in your oven-dried cherry tomatoes as a snack, topping for salads, or even an ingredient for a pesto. You’ll soon be elevating more of your culinary adventures by dehydrating everything, from dried strawberries and dried apple rings to kale waffle chips.
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Ingredients
This recipe for dehydrating cherry tomatoes was originally inspired by the need to pick our cherry tomatoes before the first fall rain and windstorm of the season. I’m not the only one who arranges by color, right?
Whether you grow your own cherry tomatoes or buy them from a market, you’ll want tomatoes for this recipe that are ripe but not bursting. If your tomatoes aren’t quite ripe, you can put them in a brown paper bag to speed up the process. That’s because tomatoes produce and are sensitive to ethylene gas after they’re picked., just like apples, bananas, and avocados.
Please see the recipe card below for complete information on ingredients and quantities.
Recipe tips and tricks
Step 1: Wash tomatoes only right before you use them. To make these oven-dried cherry tomatoes, first slice them in half from North to South Pole.
Step 2: Brush the cut face of the tomatoes with a mixture of salt, pepper, and olive oil. I like to use a dishwasher-safe silicone pastry brush.
Step 3: Dehydrate in your oven or dehydrator. The pic below shows the dehydrating cherry tomatoes from raw, to 5 hours in, and then 8 hours. You can stop at any point you like. Just know that if these dehydrated cherry tomatoes have moisture left, they may mold if left at room temperature.
How to use dehydrated tomatoes
Dehydrating cherry tomatoes makes a great snack, and there are hundreds of ways to use them in cooking:
- On top a salad like this pumpkin couscous salad or raw carrot salad.
- In a pecan chicken salad
- Added to risotto or a pasta dish like cavatappi mac and cheese or cavatappi alfredo.
- As the main ingredient in a pesto.
- Added to your dehydrated camping food.
Recipe FAQs
Some recipes suggest removing the seeds so your tomatoes take less time to dehydrate. I’m lazy, so to me that seems more work than necessary.
If you want to store dehydrated tomatoes at room temperature for longer than a week or two, you will want to make sure to completely dehydrate them so they have no moisture at all. Otherwise, dehydrated tomatoes should be used within a week or so.
Raw tomatoes don’t freeze, but they can be canned. Or you could roast and then freeze cherry tomatoes.
I always plant Sweet Million cherry tomatoes. Seattle summers are really variable, and this varietal is an indeterminate tomato plant that produces abundant, sweet fruit.
Related tomato recipes
Check out other Ugly Duckling Bakery recipes with fresh ripe, tomatoes like:
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-heart 💜💜💜💜💜 rating in the recipe card below. Let me know how much you loved it, or any problems you had, in the comments section further down.
Dehydrated Cherry Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes (about 40 to 50 tomatoes)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Slice the tomatoes in half and place them cut side up on a dehydrating rack suitable for your oven if it has a dehydrator function or your dehydrator.2 pints cherry tomatoes (about 40 to 50 tomatoes)
- Mix the olive oil, salt, and pepper, and use a pastry brush to brush a small amount over the cut surface.2 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Dehydrate in your oven on the dehydrate setting at 175°F or in a dehydrator on the fruit and vegetable setting until the tomatoes are the desired dryness.
- If completely dry, you can store at room temperature, although I will always recommend you store in the refrigerator for safety.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe post for dehydrating cherry tomatoes was first posted September 19, 2021. It was last updated May 25, 2023.
