green tomato preservation recipes?

Can you share some yummy recipes to use up green tomatoes? I'm not the only one who would appreciate hearing ones you've used and loved. Please mention what kind of food they turn out as, or what kind they go with.

No one has responded yet?! I'm surprised, because I look forward to fall and the bounty of green tomatoes. I like to make a green tomato pie. Chop up the tomatoes and saute them lightly with some onions and peppers and tasty herbs. Transfer that to a baking dish and pour some corn pone batter over the top of everything. Bake it in a medium oven until the crust on top browns, about 20 minutes.

I'm sure where you are, there are plenty of chutney recipes that you could use green tomatoes in.

Well, I haven't actually heard of anyone making chutney here from green tomatoes, but I guess it should be easy enough. I know how to can acidic food in jam jars so if nobody tells me better, sometime soon when frost is expected, I guess we'll bring them all in and make some kind of spicy chutney off the top of our heads, can it in jam jars and save it for winter. Since I've never cooked green tomatoes before, I don't know.

Are they very acidic or sour? I hope they're acidic enough to can without additional acid? Are they better chopped small and cooked down soft?

Some links from Backwoods Home Magazine:

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/burris41.html
http://www.backwoodshome.com/recipes/row051015.html
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/2012/09/10/q-and-a-canning-green-tomatoes-canning-pesto-and-wringer-washer/
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/2011/10/20/q-and-a-green-tomatoes-and-pizza-sauce-unusual-jellies-and-pie-pumpkins/
http://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/JackieClay/2011/09/21/q-and-a-canning-green-tomato-relish-fall-garden-prep-and-pumpkin-pie-filling/
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/brown83.html

In "Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest" she says you can use the same process as making saurkraut but with thinly sliced green tomatoes.

Rebecca Norman wrote:Well, I haven't actually heard of anyone making chutney here from green tomatoes, but I guess it should be easy enough. I know how to can acidic food in jam jars so if nobody tells me better, sometime soon when frost is expected, I guess we'll bring them all in and make some kind of spicy chutney off the top of our heads, can it in jam jars and save it for winter. Since I've never cooked green tomatoes before, I don't know.

Are they very acidic or sour? I hope they're acidic enough to can without additional acid? Are they better chopped small and cooked down soft?

They are acidic enough that you don't have to add more. I don't like to chop them small and cook all the texture out of them, I like a green tomato relish that has chunks to it.

Green tomatoes don't fall apart into a sauce when cooked like ripe tomatoes (or tomatillos) do. They retain their texture kind of like sauteed celery or onions. You need to simmer them for like an hour if you want to get them to fall apart. You can just cut them up, add a bit of salt, and pack them in jars so that the only cooking they get is from the processing of the jars. If you do that, the pieces will hold their shape, but can easily be cut with a fork.

From Ask Jackie: Water Bath Canning, an Amish recipe for Summertime Mincemeat:

3 cups chopped green tomatoes
3 cups chopped apples
1 cup vinegar
1 cup molasses
3 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 Tbsp. salt
2 cups raisins
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Combine all ingredients in a large kettle. Boil five minutes and seal in hot sterilized jars for pie filling.

Personally, I would recommend either freezing the mincemeats or processing the tomato version in a hot water bath canner for 15 minutes, but these are the original recipes.

And Tomato Pickles:

1 gallon small green tomatoes
1 1/2 Tbsp. salt
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled
3 cups water
4 cups vinegar
dill (optional)

Add salt and garlic to vinegar and water and simmer 15 minutes. Pack tomatoes into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Add a head of dill on top, if desired. Ladle boiling pickling solution over tomatoes, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles. Process pints for 30 mimnutes in a boiling water bath canner. If you live at an altitude about 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for instructions in adjusting your processing time to suit your altitude.

Thanks, good links! Keep 'em coming!

Frost warning for tonight, so I just brought in over 100 pounds of green tomatoes. I will let the big ones ripen in boxes, but the small ones are destined to salsa, pickles and relish. My sister-in-law just sent me this link for her favorite relish:

Green Tomato Relish

Forgot to mention that years ago I made some scrumptious green tomato chutney. I think the recipe was in Joy of Cooking or in Stocking Up (Rodale). I'll have to check.

Green tomato salsa is the best- I don't even bother canning ripe tomato salsa anymore! The recipe I use is nothing fancy, something I googled; its nearly equal parts green tomatoes, peppers, and onoins, with garlic, salt, hot peppers, vinegar and such. I second the post about making them a little nest of newspaper in a box and letting them ripen in the basement also. Just this week I've started enjoying some that I tucked away in early october. Of course, the flavor and texture isn't quite as fabulous as sun-ripened, but still better than what's in the grocery store!

This thread got me thinking.

I love a good '3-bean salad'.
Green tomatoes could be a nice addition, while at the same time, reducing the amount of vinegar used. Hmm...

Great ideas--I'm especially tempted by the bean salad. I've put up my green tomatoes by freezing them in a curry with chickpeas, onions, spices, and a bit of brown sugar.

Fry um and add a nice southern layer of fat for the winter.

We put our green tomatoes in a brown paper bag to ripen.

But my favorite use for them is Chow Chow.  I make mine with green tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage and onions. I don't have access to my recipe but found some to share:

Chow Chow

I am going to try this one:

green-tomato-fermented-chow-chow/

This one is not sweet:

fermented german chow chow

Green tomatoes, corn, chile, cheese and onions...

This has been our forever favorite and the sentence above is exactly what we call it.  

Dice the onions and green tomatoes and saute in fat of choice until onions are soft.  Add roasted green chilis to taste along with corn until heated through and simmering.  Season with salt and pepper.  Turn off heat and add grated cheese, stir to combine and serve!  YUM!!

In previous years I've made green tomato relish from The Joy of Cooking, and today I made salsa from here:  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_salsa/tomatillo_green_salsa.html.  The recipe says either tomatillos or green tomatoes can be used.  It's really tasty, as is the relish recipe which I'll probably make tomorrow, using up the last of my tomatoes.  

Although it's still warm enough to ripen them here, I think mine had blight;  I pulled them up yesterday and salvaged what green tomatoes were left.  

Budget Berry Jam

   4 cups green tomato pulp
   4 cups white sugar
   2 (3 ounce) packages fruit flavored Jell-O® mix, any flavor


   In a large saucepan over medium-high heat combine tomato pulp and sugar; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
   Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatin mix. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. When jars are cool put them in the freezer.


Green Tomato Cake

   4 cups chopped green tomatoes
   1 tablespoon salt
   1/2 cup butter
   2 cups white sugar
   2 eggs
   2 cups all-purpose flour
   1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
   1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
   1 teaspoon baking soda
   1/4 teaspoon salt
   1/2 cup raisins
   1/2 cup chopped walnuts


   Place chopped tomatoes in a bowl and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Place in a colander, rinse with cold water and drain.
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
   Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat until creamy.
   Sift together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add raisins and nuts to dry mixture; add dry ingredients to creamed mixture. Dough will be very stiff. Mix well.
   Add drained tomatoes and mix well. Pour into the prepared 9 x 13 inch pan.
   Bake for 40 to 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.


Green Tomato Bread

   2 cups finely diced green tomatoes
   2 cups white sugar
   1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
   1 cup canola oil
   2 eggs
   1 tablespoon vanilla extract
   1 teaspoon salt
   3 cups all-purpose flour
   1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
   1 teaspoon baking soda
   1/4 teaspoon baking powder


   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x5-inch loaf pans.
   Mix tomatoes, sugar, walnuts, canola oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and salt together in a large bowl until well blended. Mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder together in a separate bowl; stir into egg mixture until just blended. Spoon batter into prepared loaf pans.
   Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the middle of each loaf comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before transferring loaves to wire racks to cool completely.

Great recipes here!   With the bundle of greenies laying about the house, it's time to start making some green tomato and pepper jam.  But with the abundance this year, also decided to try one of the standard green tomato pasta sauce recipes found on the internet.  It worked quite well, although I admit having added a touch of sugar to combat the tartness of gemisch.  Great way to use up those 'maters before they rot....

Recipe below was obtained at www.thedailymeal.com

Galadriel Freden wrote:In previous years I've made green tomato relish from The Joy of Cooking, and today I made salsa  

As per standard British tomato growing advice, I grow cordon plants and always pinch out the growing tip once four trusses have set;  they say our summers aren't long/hot enough to ripen any more than that.  Well, up until now I've never had four trusses ripen--usually I'll get half a truss per plant before either blight or frost sets in.  

Not this year:  pretty much every tomato ripened by the beginning of October.  I'm actually a little disappointed because I've really grown fond of those two recipes.  In fact, I was on the point of giving up trying to grow tomatoes when I first tried Joy's relish recipe--now I grow them specifically to make it and the salsa--and I can't believe we won't have any this year!

My favorite use for green tomatoes is to pickle them whole, and then slice them as needed for sandwiches. I just don't like grilled cheese or a BLT without tomato, but I won't eat them out of season. Sliced pickled green tomatoes are the best solution that I have found. I like to pickle them whole because they seem to hold up better this way, but I use smallish tomatoes, like Early Girl or Stupice, not Brandywine. I just do a standard pickle brine, equal parts water and vinegar with some salt, you can add sugar, but I don't anymore because of my health restrictions.

Here's what i did with my meager green tomato harvest this year:

Salsa fresca, fermented.  I used green and red tomatoes, a bit of garlic and spring onion, tiny bit of fresh chili and some achocha (a weird South American cucumber relative), in a brine of 3 tablespoons salt to 1 L water.  Still got about half the jar left in the fridge, about a month on.

That is a beautiful combination!

I usually just throw mine in the freezer and use them in any recipe that calls for tomatillos in Mexican dishes. They also go well in curries.

Bump! Tell us what you've been doing with your green tomatoes this year!

Also, some of the people above have told how they put up their green tomatoes, but then if they don't tell us how to use it, some of them are hard to imagine. SO please mention how you use the final product, too.

My sister cans simple vinegared dill pickles with her green tomatoes, and she really likes it. Heat a brine of 50% water and 50% vinegar, and salt to taste. I smaller amount of sugar than salt is probably good, but my sister doesn't use sugar. Put plenty of dill in the bottom of the jars, which may be dried or fresh, leaves or immature seed umbels. Add the sliced green tomatoes. Pour in the brine. Cover, and process the closed jars in boiling water bath for a longish time, since it's cold-pack. Unfortunately I don't know how she uses it, because I've been with her when she makes them, but not when she uses them. I guess just as a pickle alongside food.

And here's a random picture of my humongous sungold vine in the end of September, climbing a string on the south wall of the house.

Last year and the year before I made Green Tomato Chutney (GTC).
I had some jars of it to give to collegues (volunteer work). One of them told me she's on a diet without sugar. So I decided to try to make GTC without sugar, with more apples and raisins. She liked it. But the problem is you can't keep it for more than a few days.
This year many more tomatoes ripened in my garden (probably because of a different tomato variety). I read about fermenting (green) tomatoes, so I decided to do that with the few not-really-rip tomatoes.

Above I posted a recipe for chow chow.  A lot of folks use it like any relish on hotdogs, hamburgers, etc.

I like mine with black-eyed pea.

I never have enough green tomatoes to make everything I like.  Some years I have done mincemeat pies.  Last year I made green tomato ketchup-- I used to the Joy of Cooking ketchup recipe but with green tomatoes (hint: reduce the vinegar!).  I also think green tomatoes make the best fermented pickles--better than cucumbers. I have two jars of these fermenting now. Just a salt brine with seasonings--garlic, mustard, a hot pepper and lovage seed this year. This works best with the tomoatoes that have not "set" yet and are still dense and firm.

When I have a surplus of green tomatoes, I love to can them for frying.

Canned green tomato slices.

Slice about 1/4" thick and layer in a wide-mouth jar. To each quart add:
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon citric acid
- 1/2 tsp of salt
- boiling water water up to 1/2" headspace

Green tomatoes, lemon juice, pickling salt, and boiling water.

Process 40 minutes in boiling water bath.

They fry up just like fresh, only quicker.

Frying some of those tomatoes.

A tasty treat in the middle of winter!