Use Tomato Juice
Tomatoes have a rich, hearty taste and offer a wide range of nutritional, health, and beauty benefits. You can use tomato juice to add dimensional flavor to your food, or you can apply it topically to improve the quality of your skin. For culinary purposes, you can use both leftover tomato juice from canned tomatoes as well as fresh-squeezed tomato juice, but when applying it to your skin or hair, you should stick with fresh tomato juice to avoid dirtying your skin with other additives.
Contents
Steps
Culinary Uses
- Drink it. Tomatoes contain several beneficial minerals and vitamins, including potassium, lycopene, and vitamins C, A, and B6. As any antioxidant, lycopene is especially beneficial and consistent ingestion can help ward off various cancers and heart disease.
- If the taste of tomato juice does not appeal to you on its own, you can mix it with other fruit and vegetable juices, like cucumber, carrot, celery or apple juice.
- You can also create a spiced tomato drink by mixing it with brown sugar and spices like cinnamon and allspice.
- Curb your appetite and lose weight. Hunger is often intensified by thirst. Tomatoes have a high water content, so a glass of tomato juice can help curb your appetite. Drinking tomato juice ten minutes before you eat can greatly reduce your hunger.
- Additionally, tomatoes contain fewer calories than the body uses to digest them, so drinking a glass of tomato juice can actually help you burn calories and lose weight.
- Use it to cook meat, poultry, or fish. Instead of using water or broth to stew or braise a tough cut of meat, substitute the liquid for tomato juice. Tomato juice has more acid in it than water and broth, so it helps to break down the toughness of the meat or poultry while adding flavor.
- Due to its acidity, tomato juice also makes a good marinade for fish and poultry. The juice has less acidity than lemon juice, though, which makes it a good alternative for someone looking for a marinade with less acid in it.
- Mix it into a broth or soup. Many kinds of soup, from plain tomato soup to gazpacho, use tomato juice as a base. Even if a hearty soup recipe does not call for tomato juice, however, you can still substitute part of the broth or water with tomato juice to give your soup another dimension of flavor.
- Boil rice or pasta in tomato juice. Rice and pasta are typically boiled in water, but you can add a hint of tomato taste by boiling these starches in tomato juice. You can either replace the water with tomato juice completely or blend a little tomato juice into the water you usually use for a milder taste. Both pasta and rice absorb flavor as they cook, so boiling them in even a small amount of tomato juice infuses them with the taste of tomatoes.
- Make a thin sauce. Tomato juice is a little too thin to make a standard spaghetti sauce, but you can still use it to create a slightly thinner, low-calorie sauce for pasta, vegetables, and poultry. Flavor the juice with Italian spices, like oregano, garlic, and basil, and thicken it up a little by adding around 1 teaspoon (4.8 grams) of cornstarch for every 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) of juice.
- Create your own salad dressing. By mixing the tomato juice with a little olive oil and vinegar, you can create a flavorful dressing to pour over leafy salads. Mixing in other ingredients like basil, garlic, paprika, and lemon juice will create a thin dressing with a taste that is reminiscent of French or Catalina dressings.
- Tone down or enhance a salsa or chili sauce. If a salsa or tomato-based sauce is a little too spicy for your liking, you can cool it down a bit by mixing in some plain tomato juice. The spicy "kick" will be toned down, but in return, the tomato flavor will be enhanced.
- Freeze it for another day. If you have more tomato juice than you can use, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. You can use the tomato juice ice to add extra flavor to vegetable juices, or you can save it for about three to four months in the freezer. Once you have another need for tomato juice, thaw as much as you need and use it however you want.
- Use tomato juice to reduce foul, stubborn food odors. Tomato juice can be used to clean plastic containers with a potent odor. Pour a little tomato juice onto a dish sponge and wipe the inside of the container before washing it with warm water and dish soap. The acid in the tomato juice helps to strip away odor-causing bacteria. After drying the container, keep it inside of the freezer for a few days.
- You can use the same method to cut down on odors in your refrigerator or freezer. Pour tomato juice onto a dish sponge or washcloth and scrub out the refrigerator or freezer. Rinse the appliance with warm water and soap before wiping it dry with a dish towel.
Health and Beauty Uses
- Shrink your pores. The regular application of tomato juice to your face can shrink your pores, leading to a clearer complexion.
- For maximum effectiveness, mix about 1 tablespoon (15 milliliters) of fresh tomato juice with 2 to 4 drops of fresh lime or lemon juice. Apply this solution to your face using a sterile cotton ball, gently massaging it in small circles. Leave the solution on your face for 5 to 15 minutes before rinsing it off with cool to lukewarm water.
- Use it as an astringent. Tomato juice can be used to dry out oil on your skin. Before applying the juice, mix it with equal parts cucumber juice. Cucumbers hydrate your skin, which will prevent it from becoming dry and flaky once you strip the oils using the tomato juice. Use a cotton ball to apply the mix onto the oiliest parts of your face each day.
- Cool sunburns. Tomato juice can neutralize and cool the skin, and the lycopene in tomatoes can help shield the skin against UV light rays.
- Mix about 1/4 cup (60 milliliters) of tomato juice with 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) plain yogurt. Apply the mask to any part of your skin that caught a little too much sun and leave it on for about 20 minutes before washing it off with cool to lukewarm water. The yogurt works with the tomato to return lost protein to your skin, making it softer.
- Applying a mixture made with 2 tablespoons tomato juice and 4 tablespoons buttermilk can accomplish the same goal. Leave this concoction on your sunburnt skin for 30 minutes before rinsing it off with cool to lukewarm water.
- Make your skin glow. The vitamin A and vitamin C in tomato juice can help brighten a dull complexion. Mix enough honey into the tomato juice to form a thick paste, and then apply this paste onto your face. Allow it to dry for about 15 minutes before washing it off with a gentle cleanser and warm water.
- Condition your hair. The vitamins in tomato juice can also add the natural shine back to dull, lifeless hair.
- Apply a small amount of tomato juice to your scalp and hair after you wash it with shampoo.
- Leave it in for 3 to 5 minutes before rinsing it out, as you might do with a conditioner.
- The tomato juice should increase the acidic pH of your hair, allowing it to regain some of its vibrancy.
Tips
- Mashed tomato pulp also has a number of health and beauty uses. For instance, you can mix it with mashed avocado to create a gentle facial cleanser, or you can apply mashed tomato on its own as a face mask to help fight severe acne break-outs. Leaving the pulp in your hair can also help treat dandruff.
Warnings
- Be cautious when using tomato juice drained from cans made with Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is a chemical that strengthens plastics and aluminum, but some studies suggest that it has a negative impact on the body's endocrine system and may even increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and asthma, among other potential health problems. Acidic tomatoes are more likely to absorb BPA than many other canned foods. As a result, it might be wise to stick with tomato juice from BPA-free containers or fresh tomato juice.
Things You'll Need
- Tomato juice
- Dish sponge or washcloth
- Lime or lemon juice
- Cucumber juice
- Plain yogurt
- Buttermilk
- Honey
