News

Turn tomato scraps into gold: make powder magic!

By Jaci Hicken

Apr 28, 2026

Jaci Hicken, our seasoned journalist and trained chef, shares her wealth of knowledge on growing, cooking and preserving homegrown produce.

Sadly, the 2026 tomato preserving season has come to an end, which means it is time to preserve something hardcore: dried tomato powder.

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Hardcore because by the time you become a preserver who preserves the tomato scraps, you are pretty deep into the preserving lifestyle.

And I’m guessing by now, if you have been reading Jaci can cook for a while, I’m pretty deep in.

That deep in that I've saved all the tomato scraps in the freezer on trays from peeling and deseeding tomatoes and cooking tomato chutney, tomato chilli jam and tomato sauce to turn into dried tomato powder.

On a visit to a department store, a long time ago, on the spur of the moment, a dehydrator decided it should come home with me.

You know, one of those white plastic round ones with trays.

Turns out that that spur-of-the-moment purchase should most likely have stayed in the shop, as I never had the patience to use it properly.

It sits in the storeroom, along with other never-to-be-used again cooking gadgets.

Then, during one of the stay-at-home days since 2020, on my socials feed, a dehydrator that looked just like a little oven popped up, on pre-sale, and for some reason, my brain said, ‘you have to move to my place’.

Little did I know that this new dehydrator would become one of the most-used kitchen gadgets in the studio.

It is used to make fruit and vegetable powders, dog treats and fruit leather.

When you come to visit, we make tomato powder, which arrives in the post after the cooking class, as it takes a couple of days to be dried and packed.

Method

Step one: Collect all the tomato scraps from making sauce, chutney and chilli jam over the summer.

Keep in the freezer on trays until needed.

Step two: Place frozen tomato scraps on a Silpat and place in the dehydrator.

Step three: Dehydrate at 58°C for 25 hours.

Then allow to cool.

Step four: Grind into a powder.

For this, a coffee or spice grinder is ideal

Grind into a powder using a spice grinder. Photo by Jaci Hicken

Step five: Store in a jar with a silicon absorber.

Use up the tomato powder over winter like you would a stock cube, putting it in soups, stews, pasta sauces — anything you want to heighten the flavour in.

We now say ‘goodbye’ to tomatoes for 2026 and hello to tarts.

We are going to go through, step by step, how to make a French vanilla fruit tart from scratch, pastry, custard, cake glaze and maybe whip up a bit of lemon meringue to finish it off.

– Jaci

Do you have a favourite preserving recipe that Jaci can cook? Let her know by dropping her a line at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au.