10 Things To Do With All Your Garden Tomatoes
When your garden gives you a bumper crop of tomatoes, you want ideas! Here are 10 you need now. You can thank us later!
When your garden gives you a bumper crop of tomatoes, you want ideas! Here are 10 you need now to put them to good use. You can thank us later!
Too Many Tomatoes? Why Not…
1. Make a Tomato Sandwich
Fresh garden tomatoes, mayo, salt & pepper on bread. That’s it. Perfection! If this sandwich doesn’t take you back to childhood summers nothing else will!
2. Get Saucy With Pico De Gallo
The perfect appetizer for summer. Just add your garden tomatoes (any variety), 1/2 a red onion, a handful of cilantro, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, diced jalapeno (to taste), and the juice of half a lime to a food processor and pulse a few times until it reaches a chunky consistency. Chill to let flavors meld for a few hours. Ole´! Serve with chips.
3. Chill Out With Homemade Gazpacho
Healthy, refreshing, delicious. This easy, cool summer soup is a must-try, and a great way to use up your garden tomatoes, and get a dose of essential vitamins and nutrients. Get the recipe here.
4. Eat Them for Sun Protection
Turns out, certain foods act as natural sunscreens that can boost your tolerance to the sun and help you build a resistance to sunburn and sun damage. Tomatoes top the list!
5. Serve Up A Caprese Salad
One of the true delights of summer! Caprese salad combines all your favorite fresh flavors and textures: plump, ripe garden tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. Serve it as a meal, an appetizer, or with a grilled steak dinner out on the deck with family. Get the easy recipe here.
6. Grill A Mouth-Watering Cheese and Tomato Panini
Two words: swoon-worthy! Garden tomatoes add the right amount of acidity and flavor to your standard grill cheese, taking it to the flavor stratosphere. So easy! The hardest part will be deciding which cheese to use. Even simply broiling it open faced in the toaster oven is a win-win! Pssst: Use your waffle iron if you don’t have a panini press!
7. Crunch On Some Fried Green Tomatoes
Sometimes your garden gives you green tomatoes, so why not fry ’em up? This southern classic could very well be the perfect summer appetizer! Try our authentic recipe.
8. Can Them
Water bath canning is a boiling water method and is the simplest and easiest way to preserve high acid foods, like tomatoes. Then you can store them and enjoy them in chili, soups and stews this winter…. as you reminisce about how they grew on these hot summer days! Check out the step-by-step method here.
9. Dry Them
This method takes up the least amount of space, and who doesn’t love dried tomatoes? If you do, you’ll need a dehydrator. Then you can pop them into pasta dishes or top them on pizzas to your heart’s content!
10. Pickle Them
Got more cherry tomatoes than you know what to do with? If you’re looking for a quick way to preserve them, pickling them is a unique way to put them to good use. They’re so delicious, you’ll wonder why you haven’t tried them this way before. Here’s a quick method from Let’s Dish.
Be sure to check Farmers’ Almanac’s Best Days calendar to check the best days to can here.
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Farmers' Almanac Staffhttps://www.farmersalmanac.com/author/fa-admin
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Farmers' Almanac Staffhttps://www.farmersalmanac.com/author/fa-admin
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Farmers' Almanac Staffhttps://www.farmersalmanac.com/author/fa-admin
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Farmers' Almanac Staffhttps://www.farmersalmanac.com/author/fa-admin
11th way to save tomatoes. Freeze them Whole. I wash them with Fit vegetable spray. Use firm, ripe, blemish free. Place them into your freezer in a bag or not is ok. To use, dip into boiling water…briefly, and the skin easily slides off. Trim and discard the stem end. Slice, chop, etc. to use!
Thanks for this Jack! Appreciate you sharing your tip!
Ah memories of the good life growing up in the summer time waiting for that first ripe tomato to make a sandwich out of .also those fried green tomatoes something you never forget and to this day still have that wanting every summer
A tip on the Panini sandwiches, A George Foreman Grill is a very good press.
wow so beautiful might be good.
Tomato preserves, similar to marmalade, great on toast or homemade bread.