At our last staff lunch, I made some healthy versions of southern classics, including the popular dish – Fried Green Tomatoes. My healthified baked version was such a hit that I was asked to make it again, this time for our CSA customers. And you guys were so intrigued that I promised to make it again and show you the step by step guide to delicious Un-Fried Green Tomatoes. Here goes!
Like any good farm cook, I started out in the field…
We have buckets and buckets of ripe and ready tomatoes all over the farm (heaven!), but for this recipe I needed the green ones.
This internship has been such a fun experience for me. There is truly nothing more fun than pulling your food straight out of the ground and onto your cutting board.
With my tomatoes in tow, I headed back to the kitchen and got to work slicing…
Because I was making samples for all the CSA members, and I knew how good the recipes was, I needed to make a LOT of tomatoes!
Next up – the breading. For the tomato breading, you need to use equal parts flour and corn meal. Because I had so many tomatoes, I used 3/4 cup whole wheat flour…
And 3/4 cup white corn meal.
Mixed them together with a teaspoon each of sugar, salt, and black pepper.
Before I got started on the breading, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and stuck my baking sheets inside to get hot and toasty. Hot pans are key to good, crisp tomatoes! Since my pans were busy heating up, I laid a few paper towels out on the counter to be a temporary landing zone for breaded tomatoes.
And then I got to work! Here’s the point where you jump in and help me – take each green tomato slice…
And dunk it in a small dish of milk, making sure to coat both sides.
Then drop the tomato into your breading mixture…
And press it down firmly to make sure you get a good coating on each side.
Flip over and press down on each side – you want the entire tomato to be covered in the flour mixture, with as little green showing as possible,
By the end, you will have Super Mario Brother hands. Do not be alarmed.
As you bread each tomato, lay them out gently on a paper towel. Do NOT stack them! Stacking breaded food = bad.
Once everything is breaded, carefully take your sheet pan out of the oven and spray it generously with olive oil spray. Then lay out the tomatoes evenly…
And give the tops of the tomatoes another quick shot of olive oil spray. Slide them back into the oven to bake for 40 minutes – flipping them over after 20.
While the tomatoes are baking, it’s time to make the sauce. Ohhhh yes the SAUCE! This stuff is seriously amazing. I can eat it up by itself with nothing more than a spoon. Start with some chopped onion, white or red.
And toss it them into a sauté pan to brown and soften.
Chop up a boatload of mushrooms (that’s a technical term)…
And toss them into the onions after about 5 minutes have elapsed.
Stir the onions and mushrooms together for a few more minutes, until both are wilted and browned.
While you wait, chop up some tomatoes.
And then toss them on top of your onion and mushroom mixture.
The tomatoes will give off a LOT of water, so the key to this sauce is to let it simmer long enough to cook out the extra liquid and let the flavors concentrate. Let.it.cook. Stir occasionally.
Okay 20 minutes have passed – time to flip the tomatoes! You should see that they are much crispier now than they were when they first entered the oven.
Using tongs, carefully flip each one and put your pan back in the oven to bake for an additional 20 minutes.
Check your sauce – it should have a nice rolling simmer going. See the bubbles?
Finally – after both sides of the tomatoes have had long enough to cook, they are ready to come out of the oven.
They should be crispy and crunchy on the out
side, and soft and sweet on the inside. Yum.
The sauce should be done by now too – season to taste with salt and pepper, and spoon into a serving dish.
This sauce is aaaaaaaamazing. I want to make vats of it and can it so that I can eat it on things all year long. The secret to good sauce is simply letting it cook long enough.
These tomatoes are perfect as a meal or an appetizer, because they are so simple and easy to eat!
Just pick it up with your fingers…
Get a good dunk into the sauce…
And take a bite! Check out that gooey green middle. Pure tomato heaven.
This is one of those recipes that sounds really complicated, but when you actually break down the steps and look at them, it is super simple. Bread, bake, chop, simmer. That’s all there is to it!
Enjoy! :)
46 Comments so far
Leave a comment
I’m making these tonight. Boom.
[Reply]
Don’t you use the wet hand, dry hand breading method? (Maybe when you’re not holding a camera, lol!) It makes it much easier and you don’t have goopy hands when you’re done!
Love the blog. (A Cincinnati reader)
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I usually do, but the camera created some issues. :)
[Reply]
i can’t believe how much my mouth is watering right now…this looks like the most heavenly healthy recipe!
[Reply]
I did this a few years ago and fell in love with them. I love healthier version of southern classics! Those look delicious.
[Reply]
This reminds me of a recipe I have made using breaded eggplant. Yum!
[Reply]
Oh my gosh! So good! We have NINE tomato plants in the garden so I’m in need of great tomato recipes! I can’t wait to try these (heh, I think I say this every day on your blog…)!
[Reply]
Wow I need to make this asap. Not sure I’d find green tomatoes here but I can for sure make that sauce.
[Reply]
These look great! It makes me want to watch the movie too, another classic! Towanda!!!!!
[Reply]
It must be so nice to be able to cook with such fresh ingredients!
[Reply]
AHAHA! I love super mario hands! How in the world do you cook something that messy and take photos without ruining the food or the camera?!
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
That’s why you end up with Mario hands :)
[Reply]
This is such a fantastic idea!!!!
[Reply]
Those tomatoes look great but the gravy looks even better. Yum!
[Reply]
Amazing. They look so good.
[Reply]
My friend just told me about your bolg and I am hooked! I love how you post pics like The Pioneer Woman. It’s so helpful to see step by step instructions. Thank you!
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Welcome to the blog! Thank YOU!
[Reply]
Ohhh yum! So tasty looking!
[Reply]
These look amazing!! I cannot wait to try the recipe! My husband looked over as I was reading the part about putting the tomatoes on the baking pan and said, “Yummm…hamburgers?” LOL. He was still ready to eat when he learned that they were tomatoes though. :)
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Haha :)
[Reply]
Yummo! I am seriously so jealous of your internship- I am dreaming of a vege garden, but my thumbs are the opposite of green!
[Reply]
what do you think about doing these with bread crumbs/panko? like doing milk, flour OR cornmeal, and then breadcrumbs? they look delicious!
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I think any breading would work. Someone told me they tried almond meal and it was too clumpy :(
[Reply]
Emily, could you use the same sort of procedure for say, thin slices of eggplant? Thanks!
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
You could definitely do this with eggplant. YUM.
[Reply]
Introducing myself, just found your blog..
this dinner looks awesome! I am totally going to make it this weekend, we have lots of farm fresh veggies…thanks for the ideas!
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Welcome to the blog! :)
[Reply]
yaaay!!! I am so excited you finally pisted this!
[Reply]
These recipes are amazing. I seriously am going to try the tomato pie soon, and perhaps these un-fried green tomatoes. Keep em’ coming. I need to use up my CSA goodies as well.
[Reply]
I’ve never had fried green tomatoes. But I need to try it now that I’m an adopted Southerner! :) I have lots of green tomatoes in my garden that would be perfect for this. And this would be a great way to use them up before they all turn red and we’re scrambling to use them all! Thanks for sharing!
[Reply]
Just a note about canning – when you are canning low-acid foods (tomatoes, green beans, mushrooms) you need a pressure canner instead of a regular water bath canner (what most people use). Otherwise you risk botulism!
If you are making foods like salsa, pickles or jam, they contain enough vinegar, lemon juice or sugar to preserve the food safely using just a boiling water bath canner. If you don’t want to invest in a pressure canner, I bet the sauce recipe would freeze really well, especially if you drizzled a little more oil over the top or just filled like quart-size freezer bags almost full so there is not much air left.
The recipe looks deeeelicious though! I would feel bad sacrificing my garden’s green tomatoes, so maybe I’ll just make the sauce and serve it over pasta or something!! :)
[Reply]
I made these the first time you posted them and used Spelt flour instead of regular white flour. My brother has allergies and I wanted him to be able to eat them. They were DELISH!! My husband, a lover of all things fried, loved them! Thanks!
[Reply]
I am so going to make these.
You can avoid Super Mario Hand by using one hand for the flour and the other for the milk. But then you’d have to have a photography assistant :)
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Exactly. Usually I have two hands free :)
[Reply]
Ummm… they look like there’s raw flour all over them! Are they done?
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Hi Lauren. Yes, they are done. I used white cornmeal, so perhaps it looks like raw flour in the pictures? I wouldn’t post a recipe on here if it was unfinished or not something I would personally recommend.
[Reply]
Yep…these were great. Like another reader asked…can you use bread crumbs? I substituted bread crumbs for the corn meal (didn’t have corn meal) and they turned out delish! I will be making this again. Thanks for the idea and recipe.
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I would assume you can use breadcrumbs – I haven’t tried it but I would think it would work! Glad you liked them :)
[Reply]
[...] I’ve never made my own but have always wanted to, especially since I saw Emily‘s healthier version on her [...]
[...] I all of a sudden got the urge to make some. Except, I wanted them to be un-fried like Emily’s un-fried green tomatoes or even a different Emily’s un-fried onion [...]
I just made these for dinner, they were amazing! Thank you for the idea.
[Reply]
[...] Tonight I tried something new for dinner inspired by Emily [...]
This post made my mouth water. I’m vegan, so I made them with unsweetened soy milk. I have missed having fried green tomatoes for so long, and these taste just as good as any I’ve ever had.
http://livingwiththelowrys.blogspot.com/2010/08/vegan-unfried-green-tomatoes.html
[Reply]
Emily @ The Front Burner Blog Reply:
August 22nd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Awesome – I am so glad you liked it! Thanks for the link :)
[Reply]
I made these last night they were great. My in-laws ended up stopping by and they loved them as well as my son who’s 2.5 AND my meat loving husband liked them. I’m so happy he tried them and liked them, he was less than enthused I was making this for dinner :) I also made the mushroom gravy, perfectly compliments the tangy green tomatoes. Thanks Emily!
[Reply]
Emily Malone Reply:
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:10 pm
So glad you guys all liked them! One of my favorite recipes.
[Reply]
Leave a comment