Tomato juice made from tomato paste.
 Lots of folks are looking for ways to save money these days. Here is something you can do that not only saves money, but is better for you. Most of us either now, or at some point in our lives, make orange juice from frozen concentrate. You probably think nothing of it.
Sure, ‘fresh squeezed’ tastes better, but you are willing for one reason or another to go with reconstituting the juice. With orange juice, the frozen and fresh products are nutritionally close to being the same. Ok, maybe you also like tomato juice. I like it. But you will never find frozen tomato juice concentrate in the grocery store. But you will find reconstituted tomato juice in cans and plastic bottles premixed. But what if you wanted to make your own tomato juice from concentrate? Well…you can! Only the concentrate is not called juice, as it is with oranges, but instead you use tomato paste. That’s right, the same stuff you get for those great Italian dishes you wish you had more time to make, or eat.
At my local grocery (Winco), the store brand of tomato paste costs about the same as a single can of Campbell’s Tomato Juice. But when reconstituted, you will get about 4 times as much. That’s not a fair comparison, because the 12 ounce juice cans are meant for being a single contained serving. So comparing instead to the $3.13 64-ounce plastic jugs (4.89 cents per ounce), the juice made from the $0.76 12-ounce paste concentrate is still a great bargain at 1.6 cents per ounce - 1/3 of the price.
|
The recipe for making tomato juice from concentrate is the same as for orange juice. Starting with a 12 ounce can of tomato paste, "Mix contents with 3 cans of cold water. Stir or shake briskly. Makes 48 ounces."
Now for the added bonus. The tomato paste has no added salt, so you can salt to taste. The Campbell brand has almost 1 gram of salt in the 11.5 ounce can. According to the label, that comes in at 41% of the daily value (2000 calories/day assumed). Drink a can with each meal and you’ve shot you salt allowance for the day. There is an interesting article at abcnews.com about the difference 1 gram of salt can mean for your health. 
I bought a can of Campbell’s to write this article, so to put it to good use, I used it for the salt source for my juice made from concentrate. The salt provided by Campbell’s’ 20% volume contribution to the jug was enough to provide appropriate saltiness for the whole jug.
Add your comment