I love wine-soaked sundried tomatoes…even if they were dried in a dehydrator and not the sun.
Adding wine to these already delectable sundried tomatoes makes every dish they are in beg to be given 5 stars. In the past I only used red wine, but since I had so many yellow pear tomatoes this year, I decided to soak those in white wine. Why not? They turned out beautiful.
Here are the simple steps to making your own wine-soaked sundried tomatoes
Step 1 Prep Tomatoes
Cherry and pear tomatoes: cut in half and scrape out seeds of the largest.
Large tomatoes: slice in 1/4 inch rounds.
Step 2 Soak in Wine
Once the tomatoes are prepped, simply pour your choice of wine over them to cover and allow them to soak up all the goodness for around 24 hours. (I used Merlot for the Reds and Pinot Grigio for the yellow.) Cover the bowl so that fruit flies don’t also soak with the tomatoes.
Step 3 Dehydrate
Drain the tomatoes and place them individually on your dehydrator trays, cut side up.
Dehydrate at 145º F for 12 hours or more, depending on the size of your tomatoes. I like them to be very leathery so that there is almost no moisture in them. Make sure they don’t get crispy though. Tomatoes are almost all water, so that very full tray that was put in the dehydrator looks very sparse when it comes back out.
Collect everything you need for these last steps:
- Sanitized jars and lids (soaked for a minute in bleach water (1 Tbl bleach to 1 Gal Water) and drained.
- Vinegar of your choice (used to acidify tomatoes for preservation)
- Mesh strainer and bowls
- Olive oil of your choice
Step 4 Vinegar Rinse
Pour a small amount of vinegar over tomatoes, swish around, and strain.
Step 5 Pack Tomatoes in Jars
Pack the tomatoes into the jars, pressing down slightly until full. Leave about 1/2 -1 inch headspace so that the tomatoes don’t stick out above the oil. You can eve fill a jar half full if you like.
Step 5 Fill Jars with Oil
Finally, fill the jars with olive oil to cover. I used Trader Joes cheapest Extra Virgin because it uses almost the entire liter.
Step 6 Marinate for 24 hours before refrigerating
Leave the wine-soaked sundried tomatoes at room temperature for 24 hours to allow the oil to remain liquid and soak into the tomatoes. They must be refrigerated after that to prevent spoilage. I know there are a lot of people who just leave them at room temperature all the time, or who have canned them using the water bath method (I did that a few years ago and only had one bottle spoil), but there are no canning experts who will recommend either method. Refrigeration is the best option. Unfortunately they won’t look as pretty, so admire them and take pictures of them at this point so you remember how gorgeous they once were. From now on, it’s the taste that will steal your heart.
