Tomato confit is a simple way to prepare tomatoes to maximize both their flavour and their shelf life. If youāre a big fan of making tomato confit in your home, you’ll need to know how best to store them. So…
Can You Freeze Tomato Confit?
Yes, you can freeze tomato confit for up to 3 months. Portion tomato confit out into several containers before removing as much excess air as possible, sealing those containers and then popping them into the freezer.
Do Does Tomato Confit freeze well? Yes
Can you refreeze Tomato Confit? Yes
How to Freeze Tomato Confit
Freezing tomato confit isn’t as simple as taking a jar and popping it into the freezer. There’s a little more to it than that. Here’s the full method you’ll want to follow:
- Cool: No matter what youāve slow-roasted the tomatoes in, you need to ensure that theyāre cool before you transfer them to another container. The reason for this is that tomato confit, when warm, will produce some level of condensation.
- Transfer: Transfer portions of the confit into different containers. Because the vast majority of the liquid in tomato confit is a form of oil or fat, you donāt need to worry about the liquid expanding during freezing.
- Check They’re Submerged: Ensure that the tomatoes within the confit are all mostly submerged in the oil. Thatās the essence of confit cooking, as it allows for many different flavour chemicals to combine together in the oil.
- Seal: Place the lids onto the container. Ensure that the lids are secured as tightly as possible, as this will prevent oil from spilling out of the containers – this would lead to a mess in your freezer thatās exceptionally difficult to clean up.
- Freeze: Once the containers are sealed, place them into your freezer, ideally as close to the centre of the freezer as possible.
3 Tips for Freezing Tomato Confit
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing tomato confit to have the best results:
Seal the Containers
Making sure to seal each of the containers youāre using to freeze tomato confit is a very wise idea, as it will allow the containers to be as unlikely to leak as possible. A leak would be a nightmare since oil is so hard to clean up!Ā
Consider Bagging the Containers
Tomatoes are often processed, canned, and jarred in glass, meaning the containers can be brittle when frozen. Make sure that your container is okay by bagging each jar – that way, even if the container breaks, there will be no nightmare leak.Ā
Add a Basil Leaf to Each Container
In some regions of Italy, itās traditional to finish each jar of chopped tomatoes with a basil leaf – it adds flavour and helps with preservation. While the preservation isnāt essential, here, the flavour is.
How Long Can You Freeze Tomato Confit?
You can freeze tomato confit for around three months before thereās any kind of significant degradation within the tomatoes. Beyond that time period, itās likely that there will be some level of freezer burn.
Freezer burn will inevitably lead to the tomatoes becoming overly mushy and the tomato flavour becoming weaker and weaker.
Tomato confit will keep in the fridge for around 1 month. You must ensure that the tomatoes are fully submerged in oil and then kept in a jar with a tight-fitting lid.
How Do You Defrost Tomato Confit?
The easiest way to defrost tomato confit is to leave the container on the counter or in the fridge. Since most of the liquid in tomato confit is oil, you donāt need to worry about short-term spoilage as you would with meat or cheese.
Instead, placing the container on the counter will allow them to thaw safely.
If you are concerned about microbial growth despite the oil content, then you might want to place them in the fridge to thaw. Theyāll thaw more slowly, though theyāll certainly be safe to eat once they have thawed.
Can You Refreeze Tomato Confit?
Yes, you can refreeze tomato confit without any noticeable degradation in quality or flavour. Fortunately, it doesn’t have a huge amount of texture to degrade.
Does Tomato Confit Freeze Well?
Yes, tomato confit does freeze well.
Since the tomatoes have lost most of their structure during the cooking process, freezing and thawing them doesnāt serve to damage them in any meaningful way.
Related FAQs
If youāve still got questions about freezing tomato confit or confit in general, then these may help:
Yes, you can free tomato confit in a jar, but there is a small chance that the jar will crack. If you’re worried this might happen, either pop the jar into a bag before freezing it or remove the tomatoes from the jar and pop them into a Tupperware container instead.
Yes, garlic confit can be frozen for around 2 months in a container with a tight-fitting lid. It must be stored airtight and the garlic must also remain submerged in the oil.
