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Switched from canned tomatoes to buying fresh on sale and roasting my own - saves me $8 a week
I used to always grab those $2.50 cans of diced tomatoes for my pasta sauces and chili. But last month my local grocery store had Roma tomatoes for $0.79 a pound, so I bought a big bag, roasted them with garlic and olive oil, then froze them in portions. Now I spend about $3 for what would have cost me $11 in canned stuff. The flavor is way better too. Anyone else do bulk veggie roasting for savings?
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the_felix1mo ago
...but see, water content is exactly the thing. you gotta let those tomatoes cool completely after roasting and then strain them through a mesh sieve or even cheesecloth before freezing, otherwise you're just freezing tomato water with pulp floating in it. i do that now and my sauce comes out as thick as anything from a can, plus i control the salt and garlic levels way better.
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ellis.victor2mo ago
hold up, I gotta disagree a bit here. I tried this exact thing last summer with a big batch of tomatoes from the farmers market. roasted them all nice with herbs, froze them in ziplocs. then a month later I'm making sauce and it's just... watery? like all that roasting time and I still had to simmer it forever to get the right thickness. plus the canned stuff is already peeled and seasoned, so I'm not saving that much time or money when you factor in the gas for the oven and the electricity for the freezer. I dunno, maybe my roasting game is just weak, but I'll take the convenience of a can over this any day.
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