Perhaps you are making tomato sauce and don’t want to run the tomatoes through a food mill.  Or you want to can whole tomatoes, but they need to be peeled.  Or, you are making salsa and need tomatoes peeled and diced.  Whatever your reason, if you need to peel tomatoes, rest assured that it is a very easy and quick process.

The process is very simple:

1. Bring a wide pot of water to a boil – a few inches of water minimum.
2. Prepare a sink of big bowl of ice cold water.
3. Once water is boiling, add tomatoes in small, manageable batches.  They will only be in for about 30 seconds, and if you leave them in too long they will over cook and turn mushy.  I only add between 4-6 tomatoes.
4. Once you notice a split in the skin, or after being in boiling water for 30 seconds, remove tomatoes to ice water.  Sometimes even if a tomato has been in the water long enough the skin won’t split until the tomato is introduced to cold water after being in hot water.
5. Once the tomato is cool enough to handle, core it and peel off the skin.  The skin should slide right off with your fingers.