Gardeners should always try to maximise harvest from each and every plant that they grow. When it comes to tomato plants, this often involves trying to get green tomatoes to ripen more quickly as the end of the growing season approaches. But no matter how successful your efforts to ripen green tomatoes may be, there are still likely to be some green tomatoes left on your plants at the end of the season, as first frosts approach. You may be surprised to learn that while you cannot eat green tomatoes raw – there are still plenty of ways to use these slightly unripe fruits from your garden. Here are a range of things you can do with green tomatoes that you have grown:
Make a Preserve
One of the most popular ways to use up a glut of green tomatoes is in a green tomato chutney. This is a great way to make use of the tangy taste of these unripe fruits. There are plenty of green tomato chutney recipes out there to choose from.
In addition to making a green tomato chutney, you could also consider making a number of other green tomato preserves, to conserve these fruits to eat later in the year. For example, you could make a green tomato jam, or pickle some green tomatoes, to store them for up to a year or so in a cool, dark space.
Make a Sauce or Condiment
The zingy taste of green tomatoes means that they can be an ideal ingredient for use in a wide range of recipes for sauces and condiments. For example, you could make a tasty green tomato relish, a green tomato ketchup, a green tomato salsa, or a sauce to top pizzas or use in a wide selection of other recipes in place of the sweeter red tomato sauce options.
Make Fried Green Tomatoes
Green tomatoes can also be fried up for a range of recipes. Fried green tomatoes – green tomatoes coated in egg, flour and breadcrumbs, are an American classic. And there are plenty of variations on this theme. You can eat them alone, as breakfast or a snack or side dish, or incorporate them into a range of other meals, such as fried green tomato burritos, for example. You could also coat your green tomatoes in a batter of your choosing to make some delicious green tomato fritters.
Make a Spicy Meal
Green tomatoes have a flavour which goes extremely well with chillies and other hot and spicy flavours. You can use green tomatoes to add zing to chillies, curries and a wide range of other spicy meals.
These are just some of a wide range of ideas that will allow you to make use of green tomatoes in your kitchen.