In an effort to pare down our grocery budget, I've been trying to eliminate food waste by freezing food before it goes bad. I'm pretty good at using it up, but I've found myself struggling to use up these couple things. I have 1/3 of a gallon bag of halved cherry tomatoes, 1/2 a gallon bag of small-diced zucchini and a full gallon bag of bite-size chopped zucchini. Tomatoes are fairly versatile but I'm not sure what cherry tomatoes specifically are best for. And I'm not a zucchini person at all. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever eaten it. We got it from the pantry so I don't want to waste it, but I don't have the first clue what to do with it.
Please give me your best recipes or ways to prep these things, preferably frugal/low-cost recipes!
Ways to Use Up Frozen Tomatoes & Zucchini
byu/SpecialistAd2205 inFrugal
Posted by SpecialistAd2205
9 Comments
Chicken soup, pasta sauce, add to lasagna
Zucchini is pretty bland, so it’s easy to give it flavor.
Since they are all frozen, I would just throw them into a soup. Maybe add some meatballs
Make some great pasta sauce, thicken with some diced tomatoes and zucchini.
I do a generic green soup with zucchini and whatever is on hand then purée it down and add a splash of something creamy or herby if desired.
Zucchini and pesto puréed makes a great pasta sauce
Zucchini bread is always good
Since you don’t like zucchini, the best thing to make with it is zucchini bread. If you did like it, I have a vegetable lasagna that I like, plus a spicy zucchini squash shrimp dish. Both are from Pinterest if you feel like searching on your own.
Cherry tomatoes are something I always dry in my toaster oven. Then they go in salad. After drying them, they can be frozen. I’m pretty sure I have some that were dried and frozen three or four months ago still in my freezer.
For an easy side dish you could thaw some zucchini and some cherry tomatoes. sauté some onions until they get a bit of colour, add a bit of garlic, oregano, basil and thyme, add the zucchini and tomatoes. Keep sautéing until both the zucchini and the tomatoes develop some colour and have messed down. You could add a bit of Parmesan at the very end.
My mom used to make zucchini chocolate cake and it was divine. No, you couldn’t taste the zucchini, it just made it richer.
I would do a spicy lentil soup
You can grate the zucchini and it melts into tomato sauce.