Here is a delicious, easy to make old fashioned fried green tomatoes recipe to use all of those green tomatoes at the end of the garden season!
If you go through all of the work to grow a garden you want to use every little thing that comes out of it. Sometimes old man Frost creeps up and tries to destroy it before it is finished growing all of those lovely fruits and veggies. Here is a way to beat him at his own game and use up every bit of that garden. Fried green tomatoes are so good and you don’t have to wait to take a trip down South to have some.
Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe
2 quarts water
2 Tbsp. salt
4-6 medium green tomatoes, unpeeled and sliced
1 cup flour
1/2 cup vegetable oil or bacon grease
salt (to taste)
In a mixing bowl, mix salt and water. Soak sliced tomatoes in salt water mixture for 30-40 minutes. Drain and drop slices a few at time into a bag in which you have placed the flour. Shake thoroughly to coat. Heat the oil in a large skillet and carefully place the slices into the hot oil. Brown until crisp on both sides. Salt to taste.
You can also use squash, zucchini or eggplant in place of or with the green tomatoes. Serves 4-6.
From A Reader:
Hi Tawra, I love your site!
You may want to try a trick my mother taught me about fried green tomatoes. After slicing the tomatoes, place them in a single layer on paper towels or a microwave safe plate. Microwave on high for 4 minutes. Cool until able to handle them and proceed as usual.
This allows you to fry them at a higher temperature, which speeds up the cook time (saving power) and keeps the tomatoes from soaking up as much oil.
Nan S.
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the picture looks like the tomato is in egg but the receipe doesn’t call for dipping in egg.
Sorry Brenda you are right. I use egg with mine once in awhile and wasn’t thinking when I picked out the picture. Sometimes my right hand doesn’t know what my left is doing. We’ll fix it. thanks
Half flour and half cornmeal is quite delicious also.
is there a difference in the taste if u use egg or not? .. just curious .. .. just curious ..
Rose I don’t think it will change the taste too much. I think the egg is really more of a binder to hold the crust together. There are a lot of batter recipes I have used and just haven’t put the egg in it for what ever reason and I couldn’t tell a difference so you might try it without and see.
Rose you might want to reread the article too because I just up dated it with a faster way to make them from a tip of one of our readers.
oh ok jill .. i will . thanks for responding to my ?? .. i appreciate it .. :D
Love fried Green Tomatoes! Thanks for recipes. : )
I use corn meal instead of flour. Makes the tomatoes real crispy on the outside.
Just bought some green tomatoes the other day – thanks for the “reminder” recipe.
We don’t often have green tomatoes here to fry, but as your recipe suggested, this can be done with zucchini. I have never soaked my zucchini in cold water first, but fried zucchini is a seasonal summer treat for us. My tip is to fry in equal amounts of salad oil, and butter or margarine. The salad oil can take a slightly higher temperature, and helps to prevent the butter from burning. Our last-of-the-season batch of zucchini we fried in bacon grease. Highly recommend it, especially since we only have this fried food during our short Canadian garden season.
Hi Jill and Tawra,
I learned how to do these many years ago from a roommate who hailed from Louisiana.
I had never heard of them before then.
He used half flour and half cornmeal to dredge them in. That is very good, too!
Thank you for your wonderful website and books!!
What function does soaking in salt water perform?
Sometimes they can be a little bitter and soaking them in the salt water helps with that. I soak my cucumbers in salt water for an hour or two sometimes because it helps with bitterness in them too.
I LOVE Fried Green tomatoes and I guess I’ve never heard of soaking in salt water for 40 minutes. What does this do for the tomatoes? I have also used a half/half mixture of flour and cornmeal, just for extra crunch.
They can be bitter sometimes and this helps with the bitterness.
Try adding a half cup of finely grated parmesean cheese to the flour when breading them. It is great. Also, if you have any leftover, they reheat beautifully in the oven on a ceramic/stoneware pan.