Are you ready for some serious flavor? Smoked Tomatoes are meaty, juicy, flavorful, and with a kiss of smoke and concentrated flavors from cooking low-and-slow, I say move over sundried tomatoes and make room for Smoked Tomatoes! Want to see how these amazing tomatoes are made? Read on and I, Chef Jenn, will show you how to make them amazing every time!
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Smokers are a rare breed – we smoke everything just to see how it turns out. Smoking tomatoes, as it turns out, is amazing! My mind is awhirl with all the ideas of what I can do with smoked tomatoes. As it turns out, the first few batches got gobbled up too quickly! I will just have to make another batch!
What You Need to Make Smoked Tomatoes
- Traeger pellet smoker or another kind of smoker
- Hardwood pellets or your favorite pellet flavor
- Grill basket or pan
- Roma tomatoes
- Olive oil
- Garlic – fresh is best!
- Salt and pepper
What Kind of Tomatoes are Best For Smoking?
Personally, I think you can smoke ALL tomatoes. However, my personal favorites are Roma tomatoes. I love that they’re big and fleshy and have fewer seeds than other tomatoes. And, when they’re cut in half, they’re meaty enough for all sorts of uses and don’t fall apart while smoking.
Cherry tomatoes are my second favorite – I’ll just pop a pan of whole cherry tomatoes on to smoke when I’ve got a bit of room on the smoker.
How To Make Smoked Tomatoes
This recipe couldn’t be any easier:
- Preheat your Traeger pellet grill or other smoker as per the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Wash the tomatoes, cut the stem end off, and then cut the tomatoes in half. If you’re using bigger tomatoes, cut them into thick slices.
- Toss the tomatoes with minced fresh garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.
- Arrange the tomatoes on your grill pan or basket and smoke them at 225-F for 45 minutes to an hour.
- They’re done when they are a bit wrinkly from evaporating some moisture. But, you can keep smoking them until they reach your desired smokiness and consistency.
Chef Jenn’s tips
It’s really quite hard to mess up smoking tomatoes, but here are a few tried and true tricks to help them turn out perfectly every time:
- Make sure your tomatoes are cut nice and thick. Thin slices can stick to the grill pan or can disintegrate when you try to move them
- Use a grill pan versus a solid bottom container to let the smoke circulate more easily
- Don’t over-season them. Let the tomato flavor shine through with just a bit of salt, pepper, and garlic. A touch of fresh rosemary or thyme are also nice additions
- Low and slow is the name of the game – don’t turn the heat up too high. 225-F is my favorite sweet spot for roasting tomatoes
How to Use Smoked Tomatoes
There are a million and one ways to use smoked tomatoes, and these are my favorite!
- On a slice of grilled bread with fresh mozzarella or ricotta
- Turned into salsa
- Turned into tomato sauce
- Added to chili
- On a charcuterie board – here’s how to make a charcuterie board
Let me know in the comments what your favorite ways are of using these tasty and smoky tomatoes!
Are Smoked Tomatoes Freezer Friendly?
Heck yes! You can freeze these tasty Traeger smoked tomatoes for a taste of summer in the middle of the winter. I like to use my vacuum sealer to keep them fresh.
Freeze them for 3-4 months, or you can keep them in the fridge for about a week. You can store them longer in the fridge if you pack them in olive oil. A tasty bonus is the olive oil will then be flavored with smoked tomatoes!
Frequently Asked Questions
Between the prep and the smoking time, allow yourself about an hour. Of course, thicker tomatoes will take a bit longer if you cook them at 225-F.
You can smoke whole tomatoes, but they will take substantially longer. I prefer to cut them in half – that way I get more of the smoky flavor throughout the tomato.
Yes! This is a fairly easy smoking recipe. It doesn’t take too long, and the flavorful tomatoes are well worth it!
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Step By Step Process
Smoked Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 2 lbs roma tomatoes cut in half
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Preheat your pellet smoker to 225-F as per the manufacturer's instructions.
- Toss the cut Roma tomato halves with the oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper. Toss well to combine.
- Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer in a grill basket, cut side up.
- Smoke at 225-F for 45-60 minutes. Enjoy!
Nutrition
A Note on Nutritional Information
Nutritional information for this recipe is provided as a courtesy and is calculated based on available online ingredient information. It is only an approximate value. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site cannot be guaranteed.
Want Even More Easy Smoker Recipes?
- Smoked Meatballs
- Smoked Brussels Sprouts
- Smoked Shrimp
- Smoked Turkey Thighs
- Smoked Asparagus
- and for the more seasoned smoker, Smoked Pulled Pork
Wow, that looks flavorful and I just want to add them to my salad! YUM
What a unique and unexpected recipe! A great way to use up all my summer tomatoes; definitely giving these a try!
Such an easy recipe! I love these simple yet delicious gems!
What a great idea! We have so many tomatoes this year in our garden and we are just like you, we love to smoke anything and everything. This is definitely happening this weekend!
Oh, this is great for the late summer days! Can’t wait to try it, thanks!
This is great! I live where it is always warm so I get to use my grill almost year-round. This recipe is about to be a family favorite!
I used these smoked tomatoes for a tomato cilantro bruschetta. Da BOMB!
The bruschetta recipe requies that the tomatoes be seeded and chopped. The first time I made the bruschetta with the smoked tomatoes, I felt that I lost so much smoky goodness when I seeded the tomatoes after they were smoked. The squeezing inherent to seeding the tomatoes (even though I was using a spoon) ended up rendering more smoky juice than necessary.
The next time I made the bruschetta, I seeded the tomatoes first, and it was sooo much better. I feel that I lost less juice even when chopping them.
Thanks for stopping by! The reason you seed tomatoes before chopping them to make bruschetta is to keep the bruschetta from being too soupy, but after smoking the tomatoes, so much of that moisture has already evaporated. I’ll have to try bruschetta with smoked tomatoes – great idea, and thanks for sharing! ~Jenn
Could these tomatoes be used to make a smoky tomato bisque? Not sure if the skins work well in a bisque. Thanks!
Oh for sure! I have a recipe on here for smoked tomato soup which is very similar. I’d pull the skins off first – they’ll pull off easily when smoked and soft. That way you’ll have a velvety smooth bisque. Yum! ~Jenn