Why I Don’t Dry Tomatoes (With Recipe)

Over the decades I’ve tried many methods of drying tomatoes. The first attempt was 40 years ago. I lived in Georgia, and the summers were HOT. I thought for certain I could dry tomatoes in the summer sun, and not have to use salt, as salt is used with almost all commercially available “sun-dried” tomatoes.

I learned the hard way that one day of sun simply wasn’t sufficient. Two days were required, but by then, the tomatoes often went moldy.

Drying Tomatoes in Georgia, Florida, Costa Rica

My second attempt involved essentially the same concept, but in the Florida Keys—almost 1,000 miles to the south—where the sun was even stronger than in Georgia. But the humidity was higher too, and again, I grew moldy tomatoes.

I went 1,000 miles further south and tried drying tomatoes on hot rocks in the sun of central Costa Rica. The air was drier, but the bugs were so persistent, and omnipresent, that it made eating the dried tomatoes seem less appealing. And still they usually required two days to dry and would go moldy over the night.

I entered the age of the food dehydrator. I tried dozens of units, from solar to battery to electric. I even used the warm air blowing off from a commercial water distiller. Dehydrators did the job, but if the temperature stayed low enough to qualify as raw, I still tended to grow mold on the tomatoes. Think about it. Sweet juicy tomatoes cut open in a warm wet dark environment. You couldn’t invent a better place to grow mold!

Then I realized I could “sweat” the tomatoes for the first hour or so, at a temperature about 20 degrees Fahrenheit above the normal raw level. The tomatoes would lose water but remain cool themselves. After the initial sweat I could reduce the temperature and finally thought that I could create perfect “sun dried” tomatoes of my very own that were not moldy and would not grow mold in storage. Eureka!

Why I STILL Don’t Dry Tomatoes

Once I’d discovered how to make perfect dried tomatoes, I realized that I had another problem on my hands, one much larger than overcoming the issue of moldy tomatoes.

Partially dehydrated tomatoes give off a wonderful aroma and taste fantastic. They are so delicious that they are essentially irresistible to anyone who smells them drying. All too often I would go to harvest my 10 or 20 dried tomatoes only to find a meager few were left, if any at all!

“Who ate the tomatoes off of the dehydrator,” I’d ask? Either no one would own up, or someone would admit, “Well, I just at a few.” I had to smile, since the goal of every food preparer is to have someone really love eating your food.

But now I know that except for during the height of summer when we have a glut of tomatoes, I really will never get fully dehydrated tomatoes.