How to Dehydrate Tomato Sauce

This is our step-by-step guide on how to dehydrate tomato sauce. Dehydrating tomato sauce is real easy to do. It also quickly hydrates if you follow our method.

This step-by-step method is an excellent way to preserve extra homemade tomato sauce, and leftovers, or create a versatile ingredient that can be used in various camping or backpacking dishes, or as part of your emergency preparedness food pantry.

One of dehydrated tomato sauce’s more popular uses is a tomato paste substitute, saving you from opening a whole can only to use a tablespoon or two. To make a paste, combine equal parts tomato powder or chips and warm water.

Tomatoes are a fruit, and tomato sauce is a good source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as potassium and fiber. A 1/2 cup serving of plain tomato sauce typically contains around 35-40 calories, 8 grams of carbohydrates, and 2-3 grams of fiber. However, some commercial brands of tomato sauce may contain added sugars, sodium, or other crap, so it’s essential to read the label and choose a brand that is low in these additives.

So, let’s get started dehydrating some tomato sauce.

How to Dehydrate Tomato Sauce
Supplies Needed for Dehydrating Tomato Sauce
Step 1. Process the Tomato Sauce for Dehydrating
Step 2. Preparing the Dehydrator for Dehydrating Tomato Sauce
Step 3. Dehydrating Tomato Sauce
Step 4. When is the Dehydrated Tomato Sauce Done
Step 5. Equalizing and Conditioning of the Dehydrated Tomato Sauce
Step 6. Storing Dehydrated Tomato Sauce
Hydration
Weights, Measures, and Serving Sizes
Insider Tips

Choose a good quality brand-name tomato sauce if you are using something other than homemade. We’ll stock up when there is a sale and rotate out the older inventory for cooking and dehydrating.

Today, we are dehydrating these 3 cans of a good quality tomato sauce. We picked up several cans that were on sale. So we are dehydrating these older cans that were in the pantry and stocking up on dehydrated tomato sauce to have on hand for an upcoming camping trip.

One 15-ounce can of tomato sauce will easily fill one of my Nesco 13.5-inch round dehydrator trays with a fruit roll sheet for planning purposes.

The Nesco 13.5-inch round dehydrator tray has close to 119 square inches or .8 square feet of surface area for drying.

All you need to dehydrate tomato sauce is a good quality food dehydrator. We use the Nesco FD-61, and you can check out our food dehydrator guide here and why we think Nesco offers the best bang for the buck.

Today, we are using quality name-brand store-bought products without a bunch of added crap ingredients. So, there isn’t much preparation work involved here other than prepping our kitchen gear. So it’s mise en place, a French term for having all your gear and ingredients measured, cut, peeled, sliced, grated, easily available, and within reach.

Supplies Needed for Dehydrating Tomato Sauce

Food dehydrator
Removable fruit roll sheet inserts for the dehydrator trays
Wide-mouth canning funnel
Clear canning jars with tight-fitting lids

Step 1. Process the Tomato Sauce for Dehydrating

Did you read the part about mise en place?

We plan out our dehydrator project and try to fill up as many trays as practical with similar foods and drying times. Today, we are drying 3 15-ounce cans of a quality name-brand tomato sauce and several cans of diced RoTel tomatoes with green chilies.

We are prepping the last of the 3 cans of tomato sauce.

Other than opening the cans, there isn’t much to processing tomato sauce for dehydration. However, if you want to add additional herbs or spices, this is the time to do it.

Step 2. Preparing the Dehydrator for Dehydrating Tomato Sauce

We know from experience that a 15-ounce can of tomato sauce is the right amount to fill one of our Nesco 13.5-inch round dehydrator trays with a removable fruit roll sheet insert.

Just empty the contents of the 15-ounce can onto the fruit roll sheet. Use a spatula to scoop and scrape out every bit of contents from the can, then smooth it all out for even drying.

This is 1 15-ounce can of tomato sauce evenly spread out on a fruit roll sheet. 15 ounces is just the right amount for our Nesco 13.5-inch food dehydrator tray fruit roll sheet. It’s not overfilled and we can easily walk out to the garage with this stack of trays without fear of spilling anything.

The tomato sauce layer will end up somewhere between 1/8 to 3/16 of an inch thick. The 15-ounce can is just enough to fill the fruit roll sheet insert without overflowing.

These inexpensive Nesco 13.5-inch fruit roll sheet inserts come in 2 to a pack. You’re going to need one for each dehydrator tray and maybe a few extra. They are perfect for making fruit rolls, drying sauces & soups, and catching drips to make cleanup easy. The no-spill lip allows you to dry liquids and semi-liquids like fruits, sauces, soups, and gelatins. They do stain when drying tomato products, but no worries.

We will use these removable Nesco fruit roll sheet inserts on our Nesco FD-61 for the dehydrating tomato sauce project. They have over 3000 customer reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5, which is evidence of a great product. Check out other Nesco food dehydrator products here.

Step 3. Dehydrating Tomato Sauce

Tomato sauce has quite a bit of moisture to evaporate before it’s dry enough. So start dehydrating the tomato sauce at a drying temperature of 160 °F / 71 °C. Plan on 12 to 24 hours of drying time. Of course, it’s all dependent on the ambient temperature and humidity and your dehydrator capacity. Remember to use drying times as a guide.

We have set the dehydrator temperature control to 160 °F / 71 °C.

With some dehydrators, rotating the trays helps to speed up the overall drying time. For example, move the top trays to the bottom, and the bottom trays to the top.

After 10 or 12 hours, consider pulling the tomato sauce “leather” from the fruit roll sheet and turn it over to promote even drying.

Step 4. When is the Dehydrated Tomato Sauce Done

After 20 to 24 hours, the tomato sauce should be fully dehydrated. If not, let it go another 6 hours and check again.

Drying times will vary depending on your dehydrator. Refer to your dehydrator owner’s manual for recommended temperatures and times for dehydrating specific foods. Remember to use drying times as a guide.

Warm tomato sauce “fruit leather” still in the food dehydrator will feel somewhat pliable, and you may believe they need more drying time. Just unplug the dehydrator and let everything cool down.

Wait 15 to 30 minutes, and then check again to be sure. As the tomato sauce cools, it will stiffen considerably. The dehydrated tomato sauce should easily crack into pieces if you try bending it. It should be brittle when done.

Once finished, break the dehydrated tomato sauce into smaller dime or nickel-sized pieces for ease of storage.

Step 5. Equalizing and Conditioning of the Dehydrated Tomato Sauce

We always recommend letting food items cool completely after they have finished dehydrating and before packing them into an airtight storage container for equalizing and conditioning. Warm food may cause sweating, which could provide enough moisture for mold to grow.

It does not take long for dehydrated food items to start hydrating from ambient household humidity. Do not leave dehydrated food items exposed to the elements any longer than necessary because of the increased risk of mold growth.

After a short cooling period, loosely pack the dehydrated tomato sauce pieces into a clean, dry, insect-proof, and air-tight storage container. We use pint- or quart-size canning jars for conditioning. Since the canning jars are clear, it’s easy to see what’s inside.

A quality stainless steel or plastic canning funnel makes the messy job of getting dehydrated foods off the dehydrator tray removable inserts and into the canning jars an easy task. Take a minute or two and check them out here on Amazon.

We started with 3 15-ounce cans of good-quality tomato sauce. Now it’s all dehydrated and broken into these tomato sauce chips. We placed the chips into 2 clean pint-size canning jars to condition for a week. We used 2 jars so as not to overcrowd the contents. Now, we are looking for any sticking or other evidence of moisture before we’re finished.

For this project, we had 2 pint-size canning jars that were just cleaned and dried. Leave room in your jars so you can shake and roll the contents around.

When the dehydrated tomato sauce is removed from the dehydrator and broken into smaller pieces, the remaining moisture may not be distributed equally. Equalizing and conditioning is a process for freshly dehydrated foods that ensures any residual moisture remaining in any piece is spread or equalized among all the other pieces in the batch. Let the dried tomato sauce pieces equalize and condition in the storage container for 7 to 10 days.

For this project, we had 2 pint-size canning jars that were just cleaned and dried. Leave room in your jars; don’t overfill them.

Every day, check the jar for moisture. Roll the jar contents around and note any clumping or sticking. If seen, put the contents back on the dehydrator for several more hours. Since canning jars are clear, it’s easy to see what’s inside.

If you notice any mold at all, even the smallest bit, throw it all out. What you see are the mold spores finally blooming enough to make them visible. But there are more, even tinier mold spores in the rest of your jar that make your dehydrated food inedible. Toss it out and start another batch.

Step 6. Storing Dehydrated Tomato Sauce

Use an appropriately sized canning jar for storage. The dehydrated tomato sauce might keep up to 12 months. Exactly how long depends on how well you dehydrate the product and your pantry storage conditions.

We’ll use a food-safe desiccant packet for moisture control because we live in a fairly humid area. For our pint-size or quart-size mason jars, we’ll use a single food-safe 5-gram desiccant packet.

After a week of conditioning and no signs of moisture or mold, we are done. All we do next is drop in a single food-safe 5-gram desiccant packet to absorb any remaining moisture. We live in a fairly humid area, so as the jars are opened and contents get used, the desiccant packets will absorb moisture for longer-lasting storage.

We use these inexpensive food-safe desiccant packets, which are available from Amazon. These 5-gram packets have over 5000 of mostly 4- and 5-star customer reviews, with an average of 4.7 stars out of 5. Our bag of 60 desiccant packets will last quite a while because they can be recharged and reused multiple times. Other food-safe sizes are available here.

These food-safe 5-gram desiccant packets will absorb moisture from small enclosed spaces, such as our canning jars. Use one packet for a pint, quart, or half-gallon size canning jar with a tight-fitting lid. They come sealed in a heavy-duty reusable zip-top bag to protect the desiccant packs from moisture before use. The orange indicators will turn dark green when they need to be recharged or replaced. They can be easily recharged either in a microwave or oven.

Lastly, I’ll attach or include a short note describing the jar contents and the date the product was dehydrated. The note also lets me know where to go in my dehydrator logbook if I want to make another note or two.

Hydration

Hydrate the dried tomato sauce chips using a 1-to-1 ratio of dehydrated product to boiled water. As a single ingredient, dehydrated tomato sauce doesn’t take long to rehydrate.

If you’re supplementing store-bought freeze-dried meals as we do, just add a tad bit more boiling water to the food pouch. Use the same 1-to-1 ratio of dehydrated tomato sauce chips to water and account for the extra time.

Weights, Measures, and Serving Sizes

This information is from a recent entry from the notes we keep on most of our food dehydration efforts.

I opened each can and then weighed them individually. Next, I emptied the contents onto the fruit roll sheets. Then, I weighed the empty cans and calculated the starting weight.

Can #1, with no lid, 474 grams, empty can weight, 56 grams
Can #2, with no lid, 474 grams, empty can weight, 56 grams
Can #3, with no lid, 467 grams, empty can weight, 56 grams

On average, there were 472 grams of tomato sauce in each can. The nutrition label showed one serving was 1/4 cup or 62 grams. So doing more math, each can has 7.5 servings. But we’ll round it down to 7 servings per can.

The 3 trays of dehydrated tomato sauce weighed 147 grams. For planning, each serving is about 7 grams by weight.

Insider Tips

Use a spice grinder, such as this one, to make tomato powder.

A spice grinder can transform and multi-task your dehydrated ingredients. This one has two removable and easy-to-clean stainless-steel bowls. One for chopping and one for grinding.

Practice at home making dehydrated camping meals using the very same gear used in the field. We practice reinforcing the skills we have learned. Practice makes perfect.

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