# Immature green tomatoes?



## bossman150 (Jul 19, 2017)

The fried green tomato recipe brought something to mind.  I tried to plant tomatoes in pots this year and 2 of the 4 plants don't look like they are going to make it, they are turning brown.  There are a lot of smallish (a couple inches around) hard green tomatoes on the plants.  Can I use those for anything or are they pretty much compost since they are so young?


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## GotGarlic (Jul 19, 2017)

It doesn't matter how old they are. You can bread and fry them or you can make green tomato pickles. Somewhere I have a recipe for green tomato gratin.


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## larry_stewart (Jul 20, 2017)

I do pickled green tomatoes too.
I find that the smaller grape or cherry tomatoes don't pickle well, but all others do.
Ill see if  i can dig up he recipe


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## jennyema (Jul 20, 2017)

Pickled or green tomato soup which rocks


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## Mad Cook (Jul 22, 2017)

Green tomato chutney if you have enough to make it worthwhile. I use Katie Stewarts recipe.


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## blissful (Oct 2, 2022)

Looks like 'so far', we have about 80 tomatoes green, that fell last night. I'm thinking of dehydrating them. I don't really want to make green ketchup. We might bake some 'fried green tomatoes'......then I was looking up the temperature for dehydrating, and came across the information on why tomatoes blacken sometimes in the dehydrator. "
There are at least two possible causes of dried tomatoes turning black.

Excalibur says, “…low acid ones will turn black when dehydrated”;

So Easy to Preserve says, “Black color can develop because of oxidization.” (SETP, 2014, page 348) (air getting at them while in storage).
Oregon State Extension says,


> To prevent tomatoes from darkening or turning black, heat the fresh slices before drying. The enzymatic reaction that causes the blackening will be reduced by steaming, blanching or heating in a microwave oven until the slices are heated throughout, but not cooked.” [1]"


From: https://www.healthycanning.com/drying-green-tomatoes

I'm not sure I'll dehydrate them yet, but if I do, then I'll heat them in the microwave first. I know I can let them ripen too. I don't like to let anything go to waste.


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## cookiecrafter (Oct 2, 2022)

I find that green tomatoes are used in many Italian recipes.


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## pepperhead212 (Oct 3, 2022)

I have used green tomatoes in a lot of Indian recipes, and Thai recipes, also.


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## letscook (Oct 3, 2022)

I take all my green tomatoes and make salsa Verde. I like them better then the tomatillos


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## urbnsr (Oct 21, 2022)

I pull all tomatoes off the plant in fall. I place them in a box and let them turn ripe red. I have "fresh" tomatoes into November or December.


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## larry_stewart (Oct 21, 2022)

I was surprised how many of men ripened.  I had bout 200 green tomatoes, and about 175 ultimately ripened.  Most varieties were at %95 or better ripening. The Romas had the least success ripening from green, at about %63.  All in all, extended the tomato season for me about a month.


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## Janet H (Oct 21, 2022)

Today I picked all the remaining tomatoes I had - most in an unripe state.  I think many will ripen and others will be fried, green (yummy) BUT I also have a lot of cherry tomatoes that are still green.  has anyone had experience with these?  Will they ripen?


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## urbnsr (Oct 21, 2022)

Not this year, but I have pulled cherry and grape tomatoes before. Most of them ripened. I'm sure the taste suffers a bit compared to vine ripened, but when it's November or December, they do taste good.


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## pepperhead212 (Oct 22, 2022)

Most of my full sized, but green, cherry tomatoes that I picked, when I was threatened with frost (which never happened in 3 days), have ripened - only a very few still green.  Larger tomatoes that I picked green haven't ripened as much as the cherries.


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## blissful (Oct 26, 2022)

Out of those two boxes of green tomatoes, everything has since ripened except for 15 small romas, which may ripen yet. I've used the ripened ones up in tomato mushroom sauce, salads, and sandwiches.


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## Kathleen (Oct 30, 2022)

Janet, consider making Tom-olives out of your green cherry tomatoes.  Google Tomolives recipe.  Several will pop up.  I made a batch several years back - they were awesome and went well as would an olive or pickle.


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## urbnsr (Dec 1, 2022)

Here in zone 5, we just finished the last of our ripened tomatoes tonight. Bummer! At least it's December (just).


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