Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

I've got a couple cans of it but haven't opened them since they are so big so i'm not really sure what it tastes like compared to say canned tomato sauce. I'm thinking about buying a bunch more for making spagetti sauce and I don't want to open a #10 can to find out if its decent. Anyone got any feedback on the stuff?

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Don't have any first hand experience. But, two thoughts:

1) Since it's nothing more than de-hydrated, then powdered tomatoes, the quality should be excellent.

2) Tomato powder is extremely hydrophilic which means it just loves water. In fact, it will absorb moisture right out of the air. http://waltonfeed.com/self/deh-veg.html#tomato

If you're not careful, you could wind up with a "solid block" of tomato powder.

Walton's, by the way, sells smaller cans of nearly everything. Put together a small order of things you'd like to try in the smaller can size and sample away.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

I haven't tried mine yet, but as an additional FYI, I read it turns to stone, kind of like brown sugar, after opening, unless you vacuum seal the portion of the can not used to keep out moisture. even a good ziplock bag with very little air left in it might work if you are not a vaccum sealer owner.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

I've been curious about the very same thing. The cans are expensive enough that I can't bring myself to open one just to try it. I ordered a small can to try once, but my order got screwed up, and I ended up with a #10 can of white sugar instead! I've been wanting to try making beef-barley stew with all FD and DH ingredients. I have a feeling it would come out pretty well.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

I'm tempted to make my own just to answer the questions. A couple of years ago, I cooked some fresh pumpkin, ran the pulp through a blender, de-hydrated the resulting paste in my Excalibur, and then powdered the resulting slab to powder in the blender. I bet I could use the same process on tomatoes. And store the resulting powder in vacuum-sealed jars. I'm going to try this during the next couple of days and will report back my results. Can't imagine that the commercial product would be in any way inferior to what I do for myself :)

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Haven't fired up my dehydrator this year yet but after the tomatoes get picked I'm drying them for the mason jars.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Gee no one here has tried the stuff yet? hehe.

I just ordered some one pound mylar bags of it from Walton Feed so I can open one and test it out. I'll report back once I do, but they are probably slammed so I dont expect to even recieve it for a few weeks.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Sad, huh? Raise your hand if you've ever told newbies to make sure they rotate their storage food or said "try before you buy a lot." :D

I've opened up quite a few #10 cans and smaller cans to try stuff, but some of it, like the meats and tomato powder, are expensive enough I just can't seem to make myself sacrifice one of those cans.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

I figured if it got to the point I needed tomato powder it would be better in chili than no tomato. But I will be glad to get a report.

Any meal replacement type storage food, like Mt House, I did try, and things like the canned brown bread and canned cheese. We eliminated some things that way.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Well, my experiment making my own tomato powder was less than a smashing success. I peeled and cored 8 Roma tomatoes, making sure to discard the seeds. I sliced the tomatoes thinly and dehydrated them for about 7 hours, at which point they were totally brittle.

I pulverized the dehydrated tomatoes in my blender (8 tomatoes made less than 1/4 cup of powder), reconstituted them with 3/4 cup of water, added oregano, basil and a little salt. After cooking, the resulting sauce was entirely edible -- not the finest compliment in the world.

The problem with my powder is that it was not completely powdered, which caused the texture of the resulting sauce to be somewhat lumpy and chewy. But, the flavor was great. And I would expect Walton's commercial product to be superior.

I have made spaghetti sauce from scratch. That process includes pressing the cooked tomatos through a wire sieve, which removes some of the pulp. Of course, my dehydrating process did not do that, so excess pulp may be part of the problem.

I wouldn't hesitate to order the Walton product. Tomato powder certainly weighs much less and occupies much less space than fresh tomatoes or canned cooked tomatoes.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

keep your eye out for good deals on canned spaghetti sauce... I recently got a killer deal on diced tomatoes with olive oil sauce for a buck a piece in glass jars at Albertsons. I bought like 20 of them. Should have bought a lot more, but I live in an apartment so space is at a premium.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

That is a great deal, buff. The glass jars are so much better and ever fewer things come in glass.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

We buy the classico spaghetti sauce, it comes in 1 quart mason jars that we reuse later.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

You can even dehydrate canned spaghetti sauce like Ive done here...GREAT space saver and weight saver.

There is also a picture of 'sheets' of sauce on page 3 of the thread

http://eastcherokee.proboards58.com/...4727882&page=1

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

That is very cool, thanks for the info.

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Looks pretty good for rehydrated spagetti sauce. I need to get one of those dehydraters!

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1.../sauce0041.jpg

Re: Does tomato powder make a decent sauce or chili?
 

Use hot water to rehydrate it,and you can also microwave wave it to get it to rehydrate quicker,like a couple minutes.With cool water takes about 30 minutes.

The product is exactly the same as the canned sauce,no difference at all.

If you are interested there is also some other pictorial dehydration ideas,like canned soups and refried beans. The beans arent great,but they are good,can make refried bean dishes with them,and work fine on burritos.

Let me do a thread on these things....