Direction

1. Preheat your oven to its lowest temperature setting (between 175°F to 190°F—sometimes this will simply be the "warm" setting). If your oven's lowest setting is 200°F or more, you can prop the door open slightly with a wooden utensil to regulate temperature and moisture evaporation.
2. Arrange your tomatoes on large baking sheets, skin sides down and barely touching. If you have oven-safe cooling racks, you can place them over the baking sheets first for maximum air flow around the tomatoes, which will speed up the drying process.
3. Sprinkle the tomatoes sparingly with salt.
4. If using, scatter your favorite herbs on top of the tomatoes.
5. Check the oven every couple of hours until the edges of the tomatoes start to curl in and the centers start to pucker. At this point, you'll need to check every hour or less. You want a raisin-y texture—fully dry, but still pliable and leathery to the touch. You'll know the tomatoes are fully dry when you press down on them and no juices seep out. Be careful that you don't dry them too much that they become brittle.
6. Smaller chunks of tomatoes will dry faster than larger and thicker ones, so pick these off the baking sheets individually and leave them out to cool. When all the tomatoes have finished drying, remove them from the oven and allow the batch to cool completely.
7. Once fully dry, store the tomatoes in clean jars in a cool, dark place (dry-packing method) OR pack the oven-dried tomatoes in good-quality extra-virgin olive oil in a jar (oil-packing method) and store the jar in the refrigerator.