If you grow any food plants at all, it’s statistically likely you grow tomatoes. And no wonder, since few pleasures on this earth measure up to biting into a succulent, ripe homegrown tomato.
We’re hitting that heartbreaking time when tomato plants start to give up the ghost, greeting us with shriveled leaves and hard, knobby green tomatoes we know will never ripen on the vine. Bur don’t toss those green tomatoes into your compost heap. They may be green, but they are culinary gold that you can spin into a surprising variety of preparations.
Thanks in large part to the 1987 Fannie Flag novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whitlestop Café and its 1991 movie adaptation, plenty of people think there’s only one way to cook green tomatoes, if they consider cooking them at all. Breading slices of green tomato in cornmeal and pan-frying them is a classic of the Southern repertoire, but for something delightfully different, consider using your green tomatoes in one of the following ways.
Pickle them
Since they are firm, green tomatoes hold up well in a vinegar brine. This recipe calls for a sweet and tart brine akin to the one used for bread-and-butter pickles, but any classic brine will do. Green cherry tomatoes are especially adorable when pickled, and can be used as garnishes for various cocktails instead of olives or pickled pearl onions.
Jam them
Green tomatoes don’t burst with flavor, but they do have an abundance of pectin, so you can chop them, dump them in a pot with a ton of sugar, and cook up a unique savory-sweet preserve. Aromatics like hot peppers, citrus peels, or ginger help punch up the flavor, like in this recipe from The Messy Baker. Use the final product on burgers, with cheeses, or on top of a block of softened cream cheese with crackers on the side for an instant appetizer.
I also sometimes substitute a few green tomatoes in preserve recipes calling for ripe ones, like this tomato and summer squash chutney.