The Canned Tomato Tip That Will Take Your Flavor Up A Notch
If you love to cook, chances are you're a fan of canned tomatoes. A kitchen staple that most home and professional cooks alike make sure to keep on hand at all times, canned tomatoes have a shelf life of at least two years, according to StillTasty, making them a convenient choice to add to sauces, soups, or stews. Tomatoes preserve especially well, maintaining their flavor and texture better than many other canned fruits and vegetables — so much so that many a cooking aficionado has declared their allegiance to them over fresh tomatoes.
Bon Appétit argues that for cooking, canned tomatoes are always going to taste better than fresh ones in cooked dishes, since they're picked at the height of their ripeness; preserved with a little salt, which adds flavor; and are peeled, which makes for a better texture. Count us among canned tomatoes' fans: We love to use them in dishes such as eggplant ragout, Italian meatballs, and Instant Pot short ribs.
Love canned tomatoes? Don't toss out the liquid they come in
If you, too, love canned tomatoes, you may have found yourself in a bit of a pickle when cooking with them. Sometimes, recipes call for just the tomatoes, and not the juice that surrounds them in the can. It can lead a person to wonder: What to do with all that juice? Well, we're here to give you an answer: definitely don't pour it down the drain.
If you've cracked into a can of tomatoes for use in one of your favorite recipes, but find yourself with a lot of leftover juice, hold onto it. Southern Living refers to the leftover juice as "liquid gold," and recommends saving it for use in the other recipes you'll cook throughout the week. The outlet suggests using it to thin soups and stews in order to infuse them with tomato flavor.
TreeHugger, meanwhile, recommends using canned tomato juice to make Spanish- or Mexican-style rice. And if you can't get to the leftover juice within a week's time, simply freeze it in an ice cube tray and use the cubes in your future cooking, the website suggests. We bet you'll never toss this leftover liquid ever again.