Preheat your oven to 200 F/190C

Line a lipped baking sheet with foil. The foil is optional, but makes cleanup easier.

Wash tomatoes. Using a serrated knife, slice each in half. Place on baking sheet with cut sides facing upward.

Placing your finger over the opening of olive oil bottle, drizzle oil over the tomatoes. You want them moist but not soaked.

Place baking sheet in the oven and allow tomatoes to slowly dry out. This will take roughly two hours. Tomatoes should become chewy, but not completely crisped. Some tomatoes may be ready before others; remove these to a plate.

When all the tomatoes are finished, allow them to cool completely. Leave the oven on: you’ll use it to help sterilize the jars.

Sterilize two 8 ounce/227 g jars by washing them in very hot, soapy water. I use tongs to grasp the jars and hold them under the hot tap, then place them in the oven to dry. You could also sterilize the jars using the dishwasher hot cycle.

While the jars dry, wash and dry jar lids and bands. Use hot soapy water and dry with a clean, non-linting dishtowel.

Once the jars are dry, remove one from the oven using tongs. Place jar on heatproof surface. I use a wooden cutting board. Sprinkle sea salt in the bottom of the jar. Lightly layer tomatoes until jar is quarter full. Do not pack tightly. Add quarter teaspoon salt.

Repeat the layering and salting until the jar has half-inch headspace at top. You will see a glass line around the jar. This is the half-inch mark. Stop here. Add a final quarter-teaspoon salt.

Slowly pour in the olive oil to cover. Use a funnel if you wish.

Repeat with second jar. If you have any leftover tomatoes that don’t completely fill a third jar, put that jar in the fridge and use it right away.

Sterilize a knife or spoon handle under hot water, dry it, and use it to pop any bubbles in the jars.

Spray a clean cloth or paper towel with white vinegar and wipe the jar rims.

Screw the lids on fingertip tight–that is, tight enough, but not so tight that six months from now you’ll wish John Cena lived with you.

Jars keep, refrigerated, up to a year.

These are wonderful anywhere you’d use fresh tomatoes: in sandwiches, atop a piece of bread with a smear of ricotta, floated in soup, blistered on pizza. We use them most in salads. The olive oil becomes wonderfully permeated with tomato, making a perfect dressing. Pull a jar from the fridge while making dinner, letting olive oil soften to room temperature. Then it’s just a matter of opening the jar and spooning the contents over salad greens.

I like these tomatoes atop my morning bagel with cream cheese, too.