4 Easy Steps to Saving Money on Tomato Paste
About a month or so ago I wrote about finally discovering how much time and money could be saved by freezing left-over diced onions and green peppers (instead of letting them go to waste before I could use them). A reader commented with a suggestion that I could do something similar with tomato paste. So, I thought I’d give it a try.
If you are like me you open up a can of tomato paste to only use 1 tablespoon or so at a time. What do you do with rest of the can? Does it get thrown out?
Last week I made a sauce and had almost a whole can of tomato paste remaining. Normally I would have just put it in a small tupperware container, stuck it in the fridge, and then later thrown it away when it went bad because I didn’t use it. Instead, I decided to try freezing the paste and storing it to use later.
Here’s how to save your tomato paste:
1. Place 1 tsp blobs of tomato paste on a small plastic plate or wax paper.
2. Place in freezer and let harden.
3. Label freezer Ziploc quart-sized baggie with date and “Tomato Paste 1 tsp”
4. Plop the frozen blobs of tomato paste in a labeled freezer Ziploc bag and store in freezer.
I made 2 mistakes when doing this.
First, I froze the tomato paste in 1 TABLESPOON size blobs. It’s much easier to freeze them in TEASPOON size blobs; that way you have the option of using a tsp sized amount or more if you need a tbsp worth (3 tsp = 1 tbsP)
And, I labeled my bag after I placed the tomato paste. Made for some sloppy hand-writing, but it’s readable to me at least 
Now you have saved your tomato paste from being wasted and can easily grab a pre-measured amount out of the freezer whenever you need it.
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Another way to freeze tomato paste is to use those old fashioned ice cube trays. Just put as much paste as you want into each little compartment, then pop them out when frozen and store in a freezer bag.
Hi mom!
Ohhhh, that’s a really good idea! I still have a bunch of those trays in my cupboard.
Great idea!
Ice trays are wonderful for lots of things. I use them with home-made baby food and the juice from canned fruit. I make enough baby food for a month on one day and save tons over jar baby food.