3 No-Waste Recipes for a Glut of Summer Tomatoes

At the height of summer, tomatoes come fast and all at once. When you've got more ripe ones than you can eat, don't let them go soft on the counter. Here are three simple ways to make the most of the glut.

1. Slow-roasted tomatoes Halve your tomatoes, arrange them cut-side up on a tray, drizzle with oil, salt, and garlic, and roast low and slow until they collapse and concentrate. They keep for a week in the fridge and freeze for months. Pile them onto toast, pasta, eggs, or grain bowls.

2. Quick fresh sauce Blitz or simmer very ripe tomatoes with onion, garlic, and a little oil into a loose sauce. Season and freeze in flat bags so you can snap off exactly what you need. A summer's worth of gluts becomes winter's pasta dinners.

3. Tomato and bread salad The classic way to rescue soft tomatoes and stale bread at the same time: tear both, toss with oil, vinegar, salt, and torn basil, and let it sit so the bread soaks up all the juice. A meal in itself.

Save what you can't cook today - Freeze whole ripe tomatoes on a tray, then bag them — the skins slip off easily once thawed. - Keep a "sauce bag" in the freezer and add to it as tomatoes ripen. - Never refrigerate a tomato you plan to eat fresh; cold flattens the flavor.

A tomato glut isn't a burden — it's a head start on months of good eating.