We were given a whole crate of cherry tomatoes while my wife was pregnant. She loves tomatoes, but they were giving her heartburn. I didn’t want all those cherry tomatoes to go bad, so I pulled out the old dehydrator. This provided the opportunity to do some experimenting on dehydrating cherry tomatoes whole. Cutting them in half is the general method most people recommend, but I didn’t want to put in the time to cut them, so I wondered- Can you dehydrate cherry tomatoes whole?
I loaded up a tray and put them in the dehydrator. I let them go for 48 hours and this is what they looked like.
There was little to no difference from the outside. The insides felt much less firm. I broke one open, and it had all liquified in there. Essentially, I had been slow cooking those tomatoes inside of their skins and the tomatoes were closer to paint balls than they were tomatoes, let alone dried tomatoes. Perhaps if I had let them dry longer, I could have seen more of a result, but I didn’t want to wait that long. At that point, the effort saved from not cutting the tomatoes in half was lost in waiting for the dehydrator to finish.
Does Puncturing Cherry Tomatoes Help Them Dry Whole?
So then my next thought was to puncture each of the tomatoes. If some air could get in, and moisture could get out, that might make the difference. I took a toothpick and, on a new batch, I punctured every single cherry tomato. Sometimes more than once. After 48 hours, here was my result:
Yes, these had moved in the right direction, but then it looked like some tomato juice had leaked out and scabbed up on the outside of the tomato, resealing the tomato. It was slightly better than the previous batch, but not by much. At this point I threw in the towel. Can you dehydrate Cherry Tomatoes Whole? No, not without a way for liquid to get out and for air to get in. The skin on Cherry tomatoes keeps in moisture, making it almost impossible to dry without. I’m sure its possible if you had it in the dehydrator long enough, but practically speaking, no. You cannot dehydrate cherry tomatoes whole.
Getting Cherry Tomatoes to Actually Dry
I considered getting a knife and putting a slice into each tomato to see if that would be enough for them to dry, and then I realized, that essentially that is like cutting them in half, which is what I started this experiment to try to avoid. With that in mind, I dropped the notion of trying to dry cherry tomatoes whole, and cut them in half. The dry time once they were cut in half was about 8-10 hours.
Below is a picture of the tomatoes 2 hours in. They already looked more dry than either of the previous batches had looked after 2 days.
The Dehydrator
I was using an older model of dehydrator, most similar to this model on amazon. It’s simple and straight forward, with stackable trays and it gets the job done. There are nicer, more expensive options, but I like this style for the dehydrating that I do. It’s what I use for dehydrating jerky, marshmallows, fruits, and vegetables.
And here is the finished product. Personally, I like drying cherry tomatoes better than full sized or sliced tomatoes. Being able to put the tomatoes skin side down on the tray really makes the whole process cleaner, and means that the tomatoes stick a whole lot less.
Conclusion
So, if you’re wondering- Can I dehydrate cherry tomatoes whole? No, we don’t recommend it. It takes a really long time, and you spend much more effort trying to get them to dry than you would if you had just cut them in half in the first place.
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