Homemade tomato paste

In cooking, sauces and gravy based on pureed tomatoes or paste are often used. To always have this concentrated product on hand, which takes up very little space and consists solely of tomatoes, homemade tomato paste is prepared.

There are several ways to prepare concentrated paste, but they all take a lot of time, as you have to stand by the stove for a long time and evaporate the liquid from the tomatoes. The suggested option, although it takes more than a day, does not require boiling the tomato paste, which means you won't have to stand by a hot pot. The pureed tomatoes spontaneously drain through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Then the thick mass is divided into small containers and frozen.

Output: 1 serving (163 grams).

Preparation time: 25 hours.

Caloric value: 80 kcal per 100 grams of the dish.

Ingredients

• ripe tomatoes - 1 kg 350 g.

Preparation

1. Prepare the tomatoes by washing them under running water.

2. Cut them into large pieces, but in a way that makes them easy to grind.

3. Place the chopped tomatoes into a chopper or use a regular meat grinder.

4. Grind the pieces to make tomato juice. From this amount, you will get 1.6 liters of juice.

5. Pour the juice into an appropriate pot and place it over medium heat.

6. After boiling, foam will begin to collect, but do not touch it yet.

7. It is necessary to well soften the tomato mass on the heat, as it will be easier to strain it through the sieve. After about 20 minutes, the heavier fraction will start to settle at the bottom, and the foam will be much less - now is the right time to collect it.

8. Place a sieve over an empty pot and pour the hot tomato mixture into it.

9. Pass the tomato along with the juice through the sieve, rubbing the mass and leaving the seeds and skins as waste.

10. As a result, you will get the perfect tomato juice, consisting of 2 fractions - thick and clear liquid.

11. Now you need to get rid of the latter. Again, place a sieve over an empty pot, line it with cheesecloth in 2 layers, and pour all the tomato juice into it.

12. Wait for the liquid component to quickly drain down, and the volume of the tomato mass to decrease. Cover the sieve with a lid and place the whole setup in the refrigerator for a day.

13. As a result, there will be very thick paste left on the cheesecloth.

14. And in the pot - clear tomato juice. You can slightly salt it and drink it right away - it’s very tasty and healthy (you can't buy this in the store).

15. Fill the compartments of an ice cube tray or other small containers with tomato paste. Freeze the paste for half an hour. Transfer the paste cubes to a bag and send them back to the freezer, this time for long-term storage.

16. When weighing, the yield of the finished product was determined - 163 g, and 1 cube weighs 12.5 g.

17. It is very convenient to store the frozen paste in small portions. It takes up little space, and the necessary number of cubes can be added to a hot pan with vegetables or pasta when cooking. If you need to get tomato juice, then 2 cubes are dissolved in a glass of water for that purpose. Homemade tomato paste prepared absolutely without any thickeners and preservatives will always be useful for the hostess.