Are you a new gardener at the end of the tomato season with a load of unripe tomatoes to hand that you don’t know what to do with? Fear not, because green tomatoes happen to be one of the most versatile ingredients and are also really delicious when given a bit of care and love.
They’re a lot firmer in texture than ripe tomatoes, and because of that, they work well in lots of recipes where ripe tomatoes would fall apart and become mush.
They’re tangy, firm, and tart in flavor and work well in various dishes ranging from relishes and curries to pies and pickles.
1. Green Tomato Chutney
If you’re ever stuck for what to do with green tomatoes when you’re short on time, this chutney is something you can pull together with minimal effort that you can enjoy for months to come when the tomato season has passed.
You’ll need to simmer ingredients such as red onions, raisins, garlic, brown sugar, and malt vinegar together with your green tomatoes and leave until reduced, sticky and glossy.
We could eat this stuff straight from the jar, but it’s best served with cheese and crackers or in sandwiches.
2. Green Tomato Salsa Verde
This easy recipe is a great one for injecting a bit of vibrancy and freshness onto your plates in the colder months when tomato season has been and gone, as you can freeze this and use it in dishes all year round.
The addition of jalapenos, lime juice, and cilantro make this salsa verde addictively tangy and spicy.
This recipe uses raw onion and garlic cloves but if you’re sensitive to raw onions or want to dial down the pungency, try soaking your onion and garlic in cold water for a few minutes before blending.
3. Green Tomato Soup with Crabmeat
This vibrant, peppery soup is perfectly complemented by the rich, creamy crabmeat and is a great light lunch or dinner for the summer months.
This is best served once it has been left to chill in the fridge overnight to allow the flavors to develop!
Fresh crabmeat isn’t always easy to get hold of and so if you’re having trouble sourcing it, try topping this refreshing soup with herby croutons instead.
4. Air Fryer Green Tomato Slices
This is one of the best air fryer keto recipes as they have a crunchy exterior but are juicy inside.
They’re kind of like eggplant parmesan slices but juicier and sweeter.
The recipe calls for the crunchy coating to be made with cornmeal, but if you’re following a keto diet, this can easily be swapped with parmesan!
These tomato slices are an easy and satisfying snack but if you want to make them into a more substantial meal, try serving them alongside a potato salad and garlic aioli for dipping.
5. Pickled Green Tomatoes
One of the best ways of using up a heap of vegetables is to pickle them.
There’s no real work involved, and even better, they’re a great recipe for green tomatoes as the tangy, tart taste perfectly matches the tangy, sharp, and sweet liquid they’re soaked in for a few weeks before the first taste.
They taste great as a stand-alone midnight snack and work well as a hamburger or hot dog topping or thrown into a stew or chili at the last minute to add extra flavor.
6. Green Tomato Instant Pot Chutney
While requiring minimal effort, chutneys are normally a good few hours in the making as you wait for the liquid to thicken and become sticky.
This chutney cuts out the work as it is made in an instant pot and takes no more than 20 minutes to prepare.
Brown sugar is the secret ingredient here as it adds a caramel sweetness that compliments the sourness of the tomatoes.
7. Green Tomato Bread
If you’ve ever sat and wondered, ‘what can I do with green tomatoes?’ chances are, you’ve probably not thought of making bread with them.
It sounds unconventional, but it’s a lot like zucchini bread, as the green tomatoes keep the dough really moist and soft.
This bread is delicious when topped with thick slabs of sharp cheddar and pickles but can also be served alongside a bowl of soup and be just as fulfilling.
8. Fried Green Tomato Eggs Benedict
A croissant base topped with bacon, tomato, and a perfectly poached egg? Weekend brunches just got a whole lot more interesting and delicious.
The buttery croissant soaks up all the tomato juices and flavor of the bacon, making this one of the most delicious recipes using green tomatoes around.
As you can imagine, the whole thing is quite rich, and so the tart freshness of the green tomato slices really cuts through the richness, meaning you can enjoy more of these loaded croissants!
9. Oven Roasted Green Tomatoes
This dish really is the best of Southern Country cooking as it celebrates all the things we love about home cooking and is the perfect accompaniment for other home-cooked delights such as fried chicken or pot roast.
The green tomatoes are halved and topped with olive oil, herbs, cornmeal, shredded cheese, and cayenne pepper before being roasted until soft, charred, and slightly sweet.
Delicious straight from the oven or on the side of your favorite home-cooked meal.
10. Green Tomato Cheesy Muffins
Cheese and tomato is a match made in culinary heaven – we all know this.
What you probably don’t know is that green tomatoes and cheese in the form of a muffin are even more heavenly.
You’ll need just seven ingredients to make a batch of twelve muffins that you can enjoy as a snack or as an alternative to cornbread to serve alongside a steaming bowl of chili.
11. Green Tomato Curry Sauce
This easy and delicious curry sauce is quick to make, addictive and as it can be made in a large batch, saves our future selves a lot of time in the kitchen making a homemade sauce every time we fancy a comforting bowl of curry.
Green tomatoes, onions, butter, curry powder, cumin, brown sugar, lemon juice, salt, and water are combined and left to simmer for 30 minutes to allow the flavors to intensify.
12. Green Tomato Ketchup
If you want a recipe that is guaranteed to be used up and not left lurking in the fridge for months on end, this green tomato ketchup recipe is it.
It’s almost a more grown-up version of the classic ketchup as it has all the delicious flavor of tomatoes but is a little less sweet than its classic counterpart.
The secret ingredient with this one is bottled lemon juice. We’re often told that fresh is best, but in this case, fresh lemon juice is too acidic, and so you’re better off using the bottled stuff.
13. Fried Green Cherry Tomatoes
If you have any unripened cherry tomatoes left clinging to their stalks at the end of the tomato season, this is the perfect way to utilize them.
This is also a great appetizer recipe as the crunchy, breaded tomatoes are served with an avocado ranch dipping sauce.
If you don’t have any ranch dressing to hand, you could also serve these with garlic aioli or sweet chili dipping sauce.
Whatever you choose to serve them with, they’re delicious and a great, easy recipe using green tomatoes.
14. Okra and Green Tomato Fritters
If we were to pick two of the most underrated ingredients, okra and green tomatoes are the first to come to mind!
These fritters have the perfect amount of crunch while still being soft and juicy in the middle.
This recipe calls for them to be deep-fried; however, if you want to reduce your oil intake (or effort required), you could just as easily bake them in the air fryer.
Serve with any dip of your choice, fries, and a green salad, and you have yourself an easy and extremely delicious dinner.
15. Green Tomato Pie
Fried tomatoes wrapped in a flaky pie crust, topped with breadcrumbs, and drizzled with a creamy remoulade sauce? Yes, please.
This recipe disproves the idea that tomatoes are just for fresh dinner ideas and aren’t made for comforting homely dishes.
The remoulade sauce is ridiculously flavorful and is made with ingredients such as horseradish, Greek yogurt, mustard, garlic, paprika, and parsley.
You could serve this with any sauce but trust us when we say that this remoulade sauce recipe is out of this world.
16. Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp Creole Sauce
The creole sauce stands out with this recipe and transforms the humble fried green tomato into a satisfying and incredibly moreish dinner idea.
This recipe is also (as it should be) very spicy so if you’re sensitive to spice and want something a little less hard-hitting, use less of the creole seasoning.
Serve with whatever sides you like, but corn laced with creole spiced butter sounds great to us if you need inspiration.
17. Green Tomato BLT Sandwich
We can never have too many sandwich recipes, and this green tomato BLT is a delicious twist on the classic sandwich we all know and love.
Like all classics, they should be respected, and any variations should be better than or stand up to the original!
Even better, the green tomatoes are fried and encrusted with cornmeal, making this even more satisfying and delicious.
Smoky bacon, crispy fried tomatoes, soft bread, crispy lettuce, and lashings of sriracha spiked mayonnaise – does it get any better than that?
18. Green Tomato Pasta Salad
If it’s early summer and you can’t wait for those tomatoes to ripen, this is the perfect recipe.
We don’t know about you, but in the summer months, we crave delicious salads that are as filling as they are refreshing.
Our best tip with this one is to use a spiral pasta shape to hold the sauce and ensure that every mouthful is as flavorful as the last.
19. Green Tomato Stew
This creamy green tomato stew takes just twenty minutes to prepare and is the perfect summer recipe as it has comforting Indian flavors but is refreshing and light, too.
The tartness of the tomatoes is complemented by the creamy sweetness of the coconut milk and makes for a really unique stew.
This recipe calls for fresh curry leaves, but these aren’t always easy to source. If you’re having difficulty, use more cilantro and use a bay leaf instead.
20. Green Tomato Relish
This sweet and sour relish can be enjoyed all year round and is one of our favorite recipes using green tomatoes, as it can be enjoyed in so many different ways.
The recipe is really simple and calls for just five main ingredients and a few seasonings.
It’s sweet, sour, delicious, and can be served on hot dogs or hamburgers, in sandwiches, with meat cold cuts or stirred into mayonnaise for a quick and easy dipping sauce.
21. Burmese Green Tomato Salad
Green Tomato salads are commonplace in Myanmar (or Burma as many people know it), and for a good reason.
The fruit’s tartness is refreshing and pairs well with the aromatics and spices used in this part of the world.
Chopped peanuts, shallot, garlic, lime, cilantro, and Thai chilies are combined to create this spicy, sweet and fresh salad.
If you wanted to amp up the flavor, even more, you could add a splash of fish sauce if you’re serving with fish or seafood.
22. Green Gazpacho
This is possibly the easiest recipe using the green tomatoes we’ve featured so far.
With no cooking required and all of the work done by your trusty blender, gazpacho is ridiculously fresh and flavorful.
If it’s even possible, this green tomato version of the red ripened tomato gazpacho classic is even more refreshing than the classic.
If you’re serving a crowd and want to impress, top each bowl with edible flowers if you can get your hands on them!
23. Green Tomato Tacos
Tacos are so great for their versatility. You can fill them with whatever you have to hand. And if you have green tomatoes to hand, even better, as they work really well when fried.
The corn tortillas are loaded with cabbage slaw, the fried green tomatoes, remoulade sauce, and pickled peppers to create an easy but delicious dinner that impresses everyone around the dinner table.
23 Easy Green Tomato Recipes
Ingredients
- 1. Green Tomato Chutney
- 2. Green Tomato Salsa Verde
- 3. Green Tomato Soup with Crabmeat
- 4. Air Fryer Green Tomato Slices
- 5. Pickled Green Tomatoes
- 6. Green Tomato Instant Pot Chutney
- 7. Green Tomato Bread
- 8. Fried Green Tomato Eggs Benedict
- 9. Oven Roasted Green Tomatoes
- 10. Green Tomato Cheesy Muffins
- 11. Green Tomato Curry Sauce
- 12. Green Tomato Ketchup
- 13. Fried Green Cherry Tomatoes
- 14. Okra and Green Tomato Fritters
- 15. Green Tomato Pie
- 16. Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp Creole Sauce
- 17. Green Tomato BLT Sandwich
- 18. Green Tomato Pasta Salad
- 19. Green Tomato Stew
- 20. Green Tomato Relish
- 21. Burmese Green Tomato Salad
- 22. Green Gazpacho
- 23. Green Tomato Tacos
Instructions
- Choose your favorite Green tomato dish!
- Prepare ingredients according to the recipe.
- Be ready in 30 minutes or less!
Kristen - The Endless Meal
Sunday 14th of November 2021
Thank you for including my green tomato gazpacho in your roundup! I really appreciate it. I gave the post a few pins so hopefully, that helps to spread the word!