As autumn draws in and nights get colder, you may find yourself with loads of green tomatoes left on the vine.
Rather than composting them or letting them go to waste, try this simple trick to ripen them and continue to enjoy homegrown tomatoes just a little longer:
Cut the vines and hang them, intact, in a dark room. Amazingly, most of those tomatoes will actually ripen. The ones that are most likely to ripen well in this environment are those that are a lighter more translucent green color, known as “mature green.”
Fruit that is a darker shade of green may not ripen as well and makes an excellent candidate for fried green tomatoes, green tomato chutney, green tomato pickles, or get creative and invent your own dish!
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Originally published on September 1st, 2012. Updated on September 4th, 2019.