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When preparing a dish and part of your recipe requires stewed tomatoes, it can be pretty disheartening to discover that your can of stewed tomatoes is not thick enough.
This is why we’re going to teach you how to thicken stewed tomatoes today. Fortunately, thickening your stewed tomatoes is relatively easy and straightforward. All you have to do is to simmer it until you get the required thickness.
More so, you can opt to thicken your stewed tomatoes with a little bit of cornstarch. This post will serve as a guide on all you need to know about making your watered-down stewed tomatoes a tad thicker.
Read On!
What Are Stewed Tomatoes?
Stewed tomatoes are pretty popular in the United States of America. It is prepared with fresh tomatoes, herbs, garlic, mushrooms, and other seasonings.
Generally, “stew” refers to meals that have the presence of veggies and other food ingredients cooked in a liquid state.
That is why stewed tomatoes are stew made out of tomatoes; it involves cooking fresh tomatoes at slow but increasing heat to retain their shape and cooked to the point that its flavor comes out to create a savory taste.
Stewed tomatoes, because of their high nutritional value, are eaten as a main dish but sometimes preferred as a side dish. It can be found in a lot of cuisine in the United States. It is prepared and served for some occasions like thanksgiving.
How To Thicken Stewed Tomatoes
In preparation for your dish, you might have well-prepared stewed tomatoes, your stewed tomatoes might not be as thick as you need them for your recipe. If you have just fresh tomatoes, you can use the steps above to make the stewed tomatoes.
To thicken the stewed tomatoes, you need to simmer the tomatoes for a while. When simmering, the moist content of the stewed tomatoes disappears with the increasing heat. While steaming, watch it closely to avoid it getting burnt.
How To Prepare Stewed Tomatoes
The stewed tomatoes are essential in a recipe for stew and pasta sauce preparation. It is necessary to know how to prepare stewed tomatoes at home.
Below is a guide to help you prepare stewed tomatoes from scratch.
- Wash the tomatoes: The first thing to do is to properly wash the fresh tomatoes to get rid of all dirt and spots in the tomatoes.
- Peel the tomatoes: After washing the tomatoes, the next thing to do is to peel the tomatoes. However, this is optional.
- Chop the tomatoes: Chopping the tomatoes into small chunks helps the ingredients mix properly with the tomatoes
- Add other ingredients: Other ingredients like salt, onions, garlic, pepper, mushroom, etc., should be added at this point for proper mixing.
- Simmer the tomatoes: Cook the tomatoes and simmer for about 30 minutes.
- Allow it cool: Allow your already made stewed tomatoes to cool down. At this point, you can either consume, add to other recipes, or store based on preference.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do You Thicken Stewed Tomatoes With Cornstarch?
Some people use cornstarch to thicken their stewed tomatoes. But the good news is that you can thicken your stewed tomatoes without the use of cornstarch. All you need to do is to simmer your stewed tomatoes until your get your required texture.
How Do You Thicken Canned Tomatoes?
You can also cook down canned tomato sauce to thicken it. This will concentrate the flavor because the cooking process removes some of the water content, meaning more flavor molecules per bite.
A quicker way to thicken is to add some type of thickeners, such as cornstarch or flour.
Conclusion
Stewed tomatoes are highly nutritional packed with a lot of health benefits. They are a good source for Vitamins A and Vitamin C. They don’t only enhance the taste of your meal when added to your recipe but also are serve as antioxidants.
The procedure of how to thicken stewed tomatoes above makes stewed tomatoes an excellent addition to your soup, pasta sauce, and stewed tomato recipe.