Green Tomato Powder

Green tomato powder. © Healthy Canning / 2020

Green tomato powder is made from dried green tomato. You can use it as a garnish, or as an ingredient. It is a nice souring agent in dry rubs.

You can buy it, or make it at home.

How to make green tomato powder at home

• From whole green tomatoes: wash, core, slice. (Optionally de-seed tomatoes.)
• From tomato skins: press excess water out of peels.
• Spread skins or tomato slices out on dehydrator trays. Follow temperature and time guidelines for your dehydrator model. (In the range of 8 to 12 hrs at 125 F / 50 C; time will vary by humidity in your area and how well you space out the skins on the drying trays.)
• When thoroughly dry, pulverise in food processor to a coarse grind.
• Then take that and grind in an electric coffee mill to a fine powder.

If using whole tomatoes, ideally use plum tomatoes: you’ll get the most powder. If using cherry tomatoes, just cut in half.

To de-seed tomatoes, with your fingers or a spoon just scoop out the seed gel in middle of tomato, and discard. You don’t need to worry about getting every last seed. Most people say not to bother seeding cherry tomatoes.

Some people suggest that for the finest powders, freeze your dried tomato slices or skins first, and put them in the food processor frozen. The idea is that they will shatter.

If you sundried your tomato slices or skins, then you definitely want to freeze them for about a week first, to kill off any bug eggs that might have got laid in them. (This shouldn’t be a concern if you used a dehydrator.)

Some people report that they burn out electric coffee mills by trying to skip the food processor step. Let the food processor with its heavier engine do the hardest part of this first.

You may get a coarser powder or a finer powder, it all depends on your grinding technique and what you have to work with.

Green tomato powder. © Healthy Canning / 2020

Green tomato powder equivalents

Dried skins from 6 dozen large Romas = 120 grams in weight (3 quarts / litres in volume) = 2 cups coarsely ground = 1 cup / 120 g finely ground.

1 dozen large Roma tomatoes = 20 g of dried skins = 20 g finely ground tomato powder

22 kg (50 lbs) large Roma tomatoes = 8 Excalibur trays of tomato skins before drying = 3 quarts / litres volume of dried skins = 4 cups / 300 g / 10.5 oz of finely-ground tomato powder

1 tablespoon tomato powder = .75 g = .26 oz

Using green tomato powder

• Use in dry rubs;
• Add to a vinaigrette salad dressing;
• Add to meatloaf and meatball mixtures;
• Add as a seasoning to soups and stews;
• Use as a coating for vegetables that you are going to roast.

Green tomato Powder Nutrition

The following information is from MyFitnessPal. We’re presuming the information is for powder made from whole tomato.

Per 1 tablespoon / 7.5 g / .26 oz

• Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 2 tablespoons, 1 point.
• Weight Watchers SmartPoints®: 1 point, 2 tablespoons 2 points.

We are aware that there are various claims being made about the health benefits of green tomato powder, but we’re also aware that the research is evolving and that it’s early days yet on the topic. Our focus is culinary.

* Nutrition info provided by MyFitnessPal

* PointsPlus™ and SmartPoints™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® registered trademarks.