Green tomatoes, with their bright acidity and crisp texture, make excellent pickles. And just like ripe tomatoes, they pair beautifully with chilis and garlic. But what you may not know is that you can toss them in a jar with a little saltwater and ferment them too. Fermented green tomatoes are simple to make, and a lot easier than making pickles with vinegar.
Jump to Recipe | What are they? | Tips | Equipment | Variations
What are fermented green tomatoes?
Fermented green tomatoes are unripe tomatoes that have been fermented in a slightly salty brine. Recipes often include additional ingredients, like chilies, garlic or spices, which add flavor to the tomatoes while they ferment.
Their pleasantly sour and slightly salty flavor tastes similar to traditional pickled green tomatoes. However, unlike vinegar-pickled tomatoes, fermented green tomatoes are rich in probiotics like sauerkraut, fermented carrots, kimchi and other fermented vegetables.
Tips for Fermenting Green Tomatoes
While making fermented vegetables and other probiotic foods can feel daunting, it’s actually a fairly simple and straightforward process. As long as you can fill a jar and mix salt with water, you can make fermented vegetables.
You start first by whisking salt into warm water until it dissolves. Salt gives vegetables, like green tomatoes, flavor and it also helps keep them crisp while they ferment. Next, you’ll fill your jar with green tomatoes, chilis, garlic and any other spices you like. After that, you fill the jar with saltwater, seal it and allow the tomatoes to ferment until they taste pleasant to you.
More Tips for Making Fermented Green Tomatoes
- Use a fermentation seal. Fermentation is, ideally, an anaerobic process. That means you want to keep oxygen out while allowing the CO2 that builds up during fermentation to escape. A quart-sized jar with a fermentation seal like this helps.
- Keep tomatoes under brine. Weighing down vegetables with a fermentation weight helps keep them under brine, and away from mold.
- Taste your tomatoes. Your tomatoes are ready when they taste good to you, and so try tasting them around 14 days and continue tasting them until they acquire a pleasant sourness that you like best.
- A light, white film may develop. Kahm yeast is a benign white film that you’ll sometimes find on your ferments. You can spoon it off, and your tomatoes will be fine.
Fermentation Crocks and Jars
Vegetable fermentation is an anaerobic process. That means that beneficial bacteria benefit from an airtight environment, in which oxygen is kept out. However, beneficial bacteria responsible for fermenting your tomatoes will release carbon dioxide that can build up in an airtight container.
Using equipment designed for fermentation ensures that you create the optimal environment all those good bacteria, while also limiting chances of contamination by stray microbes like molds.
That means, you’ll want to use either a fermentation crock with a water well or a jar equipped with a fermentation seal when you make fermented green tomatoes.
- Fermentation crocks are heavy, fairly expensive and you have to ferment a large volume. They’re excellent cooks for people who love fermentation and eat many fermented foods.
- Jars with fermentation seals are a good choice for small batches of fermented vegetables, and relatively inexpensive.
- Jars without seals work too; however, you’ll need to burp your jars regularly to allow the carbon dioxide that builds up to escape.
How to Serve Fermented Green Tomatoes
Most pickles and many fermented vegetables work well as an appetizer. The flavors of saltiness and sourness act as appetizers – kickstarting the digestive process. So serve them as part of a cruditée platter in advance of a meal.
In addition to serving fermented green tomatoes as an appetizer, you can also serve them as a side dish or condiment, too. You can chop them finely and serve them over broiled sausages, or slice them thinly and serve them on top of burgers.
Fermented Green Tomatoes Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups water
- 2 tablespoons finely ground real salt
- 1 1/2 pounds green tomatoes quartered
- 4 medium hot peppers sliced 1/4-inch thick
- 6 medium garlic cloves
Equipment
- Quart-sized Jar
Instructions
- Warm 2 cups water in a small saucepan, and then whisk in the salt until it dissolves. Turn off the heat, and let cool to room temperature.
- Place the tomatoes into a jar, and then add the hot peppers and garlic. Pour the cooled brine over them, adding additional water to cover if necessary. Place a glass fermentation weight over the tomatoes, and seal the jar.
- Allow the tomatoes to ferment at least 14 days, and up to 6 weeks. Taste the tomatoes periodically, and when they're sour enough for your liking, transfer them to the fridge where they'll keep at least 6 months.
Variations
Once you get the hang of the basic recipe for fermented green tomatoes, you’ll want to try making other versions, too. As long as you maintain the basic ratio of saltwater to vegetables, you can add just about any flavors you like.
Dill and garlic are excellent additions to just about any pickle recipe, and work as equally well with green tomatoes as they do with cucumbers in this sour pickle recipe.
Mustard, celery and dill seed are classic pickling spices that many cooks add to vinegar-pickled green tomatoes, and you can add them to your fermented version, too.
Turmeric and black pepper can give your tomatoes a gorgeous yellow-green color, and great flavor too,
Other Fermented Vegetable Recipes to Try
In addition to fermented green tomatoes, there’s loads more fermented vegetable recipes that you can try. To make it easier, they all follow the same basic principle: toss vegetables and spices into a jar, cover with brine, seal and wait.
Fermented Okra is seasoned with dried chilies, garlic, and black mustard seeds.
Fermented Jalapeños are super easy to make, and you can even make hot sauce too.
Fermented Garlic is a great way to infuse garlic with a pleasant salty-sour flavor. And you can even make fermented garlic scapes, too, in the spring.
Dan McDonald Sr says
Good stuff ????
tim says
So we had to travel after starting the fermentation process. We dont have a fermentation crock on hand so we decided to ferment in a stsinless stock pot. We weighted the veggies down (just green tomatos) sealed the pot with aluminum foil, covered, and stored. I just opened them and notice the brine was slimy and there was mold on the top. I took a small taste of the brine and it tasted fine (saurkraut flavor). I know there are good molds (think cheese) and bad molds (think black mold). I strained off the mold but am wondering if the tomatoes will still be ok to eat or will people get sick? I have a feeling they should be fine as they dont taste rancid, but I want to know what you think.
Jenny says
Hi Tim, I wouldn’t eat it or serve it to guests as a slimy texture is not a good sign.
Kimberly says
Yes I have the same question as James! What do I do when the tomatoes are ready for jars? Do they go directly in the jars with original brine? Do they need to be rinsed? Should I mix up new brine for the jars? Should I add new garlic, dispose of garlic or put original garlic in the jars? Thanks!
mike says
keep all the juices and garlic put everything in jjars and put in fridge
James says
I have fermented green tomatoes they are about ready to put into jars. Do you put the water they were fermented in or do you leave them dry when you put them in jars? THANKS James
James says
Tried your tomatoes and pepper they were grate ive got to put up more before the garden is gone. THANKS.
Claire Hill says
Have you ever made these without the peppers? I am looking for a recipe like the ‘stinky’ green tomatoes I ate as a child. They were from a local Jewish deli and they were delicious!
Sue says
Hi Jenny – I ferment regularly and loved the idea of using up some green tomatoes and peppers from my garden. Thank you for this brilliant recipe.
I am one week on the fermentation ( using crock with stone ) it has been burping away and I wanted to take a peek since it is still pretty hot here. Well there is quite a white film on top with huge bubbles. I know the peppers can create a milky film but thought I should check in with you. What do you think? Normal? Let it go for another week? Thank you?
Tom says
I use two 5 liter german crocks with a water seal and stones, a really good investment, already on its 20th ferment. Best results that seem to never fail are sriracha using garden grown modestly hot peppers, like Beaver Dam, Anaheim, Poblano, Fresno Chili, Cherry bomb. No Jalapeno or habanero or hotter peppers, so there is heat but incredible flavors. Based on this history, my reply.
First, the milky film is mold, indicating there was oxygen present during the fermenting. I suggest using two cabbage leaves cut to the size of the pot to cover the fermenting veg, anchored with the two stones.
Second, I use four squirts of an inert gas at the start. It is available in wine shops, designed to put a heavy non-oxygen blanket on a partially drunk bottle of wine, allowing it to store for several days.
This pushes out the oxygen, gives the fermenting process some time to start and produce CO2, which will push out the oxygen.
If you want to look or stir, then use the inert gas again. I still see some mold, that I skim off, but it is greatly reduced.
The material can keep fermenting, as the brine and lactic acid protect against the bad organisms, deepens the flavor.
My appreciation of this site is the focus on lactic acid fermenting. Most recipes call for vinegar and then heating up the mixture, which kills all of the bacteria and the benefits of probiotics in our diets. The end result is called ‘pickles’, but is acetic acid from the vinegar, and has little to no biologic life.
Barry says
Here is a recipe something like this that i got years ago from on old Italian lady in her 90s. In a large crock ( we use a 10 gal.) chop up and layer green tomatoes, peeled and chopped eggplant, green hot wax peppers before they turn red and 1/2 cup sliced garlic. Sprinkle over this 1 heaping tsp. white pepper,1 heaping Tbls. Italian seasonings and 3 Tbls. canning salt. Press lightly, then repeat the layers till the crock in almost full. Put on your wooden plate, then a clean heavy stone. Press lightly till the liquid cover all the veggies. Cover with cheese cloth, put in a cool place and let ferment for 6 to 8 weeks. Then drain all liquids but don’t rinse. in a large bowl mix all the mix with veg. oil, mix well. In sterilized jars add a little oil then the mix, top off with oil and put on the sterilized lids. Store in a cool place and enjoy.
Don Viviano says
My grandfather and my dad layered peppers then green tomatoes then unionized salt in a 5 gallon crock. Covered with a round piece of wood with a hole in the center, then a large smooth stone for weight. Cheesecloth on top. This was kept in a cold basement room all fall. At Christmas, he scooped a portion out and rinsed in a Callender . Then, he fried this in olive oil. My eyes burned. We kept this in a mayonnaise jar had with Italian bread with every meal. I’m salivating! .
Russ Talerico says
We called it Zaliata!! I still have the large crock mom and dad used. Manga!!!
Richard says
After fermentation do I just pack the tomatoes in mason jar or are the peppers also included?
gina says
I have an assortment of sweet and hot peppers that i picked before our first frost last week. Do sweet peppers ferment well too? I have a 5L crock and would like to just ferment everything together.
So far i have only fermented kraut a couple of times (which is awesome) — so i am not as confident as i would like with fermenting yet.
Also i have contemplated chili sauce. Can i ferment the peppers whole first (using the caldwells starter), then grind and strain some for chili sauce later?
Tineke says
What an inspiring post! I already put all my green tomatoes in the freezer, thinking I’d turn them into chutney one dark winter day. Do you know if this would work if the tomatoes had been previously frozen, or would freezing have killed off some of the little helpers that kick off fermentation?
Joshua Hampton says
I’ve never really tried pickling before. I just want to say I learned a lot from this post, enough to get me interested in trying to ferment food in my own kitchen. Thanks for this.
Beth says
I wonder if tomatillos would work….all my tomatoes turned red.
Marlene says
Tomatillos would work wonderfully. I’ve pickled them as well for years. Though I usually have to fight to pickle them since all the boys in my life love salsa verde!
Allison Garcia says
So, if I do them in mason jars (don’t have a fermentation crock), do I then just store them in the fridge or do I leave them out a few days (or 14 days)? I made the kimchi in a plastic bucket with a stone from my garden and it turned out amazing! I have eaten almost all of it (all by myself because hubby won’t touch the stinky stuff) and will have to make more soon.
christine says
To do this in mason jars, just disperse the veggies evenly among jars and add liquid? No weight stones?
Would there be a point in adding a T of whey? Sounds so yummy 🙂
Jenny says
If you do it in mason jars, I’d recommend tossing all the veggies into a big bowl first then stirring them to mix them up a bit. Then you can easily add the veggies to the jars, pour the brine over. No need for whey in this, but do make sure the vegetables are kept completely submerged under the brine while allowing 1-inch headspace in the jar. A weight, of some sort, would help because the peppers tend to float and you don’t want them exposed to air.