Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe- A Crunchy Summer Ambrosia

Fried Green Tomatoes! Every year we eagerly wait for late summer, for our summer Ambrosia, our summer indulgence, our breaded green tomatoes recipe that fries the green disks to perfection. Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the classic Southern dish is made even better with a coating of Panko crumbs instead of cornmeal. This recipe has been updated from the original September 2014 version in order to provide a better experience for our readers. Last update May 2019.

For this recipe you will need: green tomatoes, buttermilk, all-purpose flour, panko crumbs, peanut oil, salt, pepper. 

Fried foods are not bad for you

I know the first thing you’re going to say is that fried foods are bad for you. I know, we’ve heard that too. But it’s just not so!

Eating fried foods, such as fried green tomatoes that are properly prepared, and not on a daily basis . . . .

. . . .is not bad for you.

We don’t eat a lot of fried foods, but when we do, we eat them with great gusto and without guilt.

Discovering fried green tomatoes

I’d never heard of fried green tomatoes until I met my Honey. I remember the first time I heard of them. Hank, my future father-in-law, was on a quest, he was looking for green tomatoes.

Green tomatoes? The stores were full of nice red ripe tomato globes, why would he want unripe tomatoes? And what could he possibly do with them?

Of course,  I didn’t question. I was on my best behavior. I wasn’t married to his son, yet, and I certainly didn’t want to show any disrespect.

See,  this was sort of like the time when Helen, my future mother-in-law,  asked if I liked mangoes. I told her I’d never tasted them. {I have since then. . . . the real ones}

“You haven’t?” she said. “I always put them in my spaghetti sauce.” 

A green pepper by any other name

I then realized that she was talking about green peppers. She was busy dicing green peppers for the spaghetti sauce!

Hmmm, mangoes, how unusual, I thought. They certainly don’t resemble a green pepper and the meat of a mango is nowhere near the color of green.

I never did find out how a green pepper came to be called a mango . . . . do you know??

 So, in the case of the green tomatoes, I was not going to question my future father-in-law, although I eventually did find out.

The first taste of fried green tomatoes

It wasn’t until years later that I’d actually tasted them. Ahhh! the wasted years. How I went that long without indulging in such a tasty dish,  I don’t know. Bet you can’t eat just one. I know I can’t. 🙂

They are really easy to make. Of course, the most important thing is to find tomatoes that aren’t too green or too ripe. If they’re too green they don’t taste good,  and if they’re too ripe they’ll fall apart as you fry.

Preparing the tomatoes for frying

Here’s what we do, we look for the perfect tomatoes for frying. They will be firm, a solid green, and about the size of tennis balls.

Once we have the tomatoes, we cut off both ends, then slice the rest of the tomatoes in about 1/4 inch pieces. { Step 1}

We sometimes do this ahead of time, then put the slices in a dish that we cover with plastic wrap. The tomatoes stay in the fridge until we’re ready to prepare them for frying. {Step 2}

Our dipping station consists of a ziplock bag of all-purpose flour, a glass dish with buttermilk,  and panko crumbs on wax paper. {Part 3}

That’s it! Oh, and the peanut oil for frying. We always deep fry in peanut oil because we think it’s the best oil for frying.

Crunchy coating for the green tomatoes recipe

When we’re ready to fry, we take the tomatoes out of the fridge and spritz them with some plain water. We do this so the flour will adhere to the tomato.

We drop several slices into the flour. Shake! Shake! Shake! Do this until the slices are completely covered.

Be sure you keep the sack closed or you’ll have a flour cloud in your kitchen. ????

As we take the slices out of the flour, we give them another little shake to remove the excess flour. Next, we dip each tomato into the buttermilk. We use a sharp little fork to do this,  I think it’s a shrimp fork,  its tines are really sharp!

We lift the tomato out of the liquid and let the excess buttermilk drain from the tomato. Finally, we put it on the panko crumbs { Step 4}.

Frying the green tomatoes

It’s important to firmly press the panko crumbs onto both sides of the green tomatoes. {1} Put them on a cooling rack — that prevents the breading from getting soggy. {2}

We heat the peanut oil to 350 F. Using tongs, we gently slip several slices of the breaded green tomato slices into the sizzling oil. Be careful not to overcrowd. Fry them until they turn a nice golden brown. {3)

If you don’t have a fryer you can do this on your stove top. Use a back burner if you have curious little ones in the house. Make sure you put the oil in a deep pot and fill it halfway with the peanut oil. Use a thermometer to make sure you reach the desired temperature.

As the green tomatoes fry,  put them back on the cooling rack once they are done. This keeps them crunchy. Salt them to taste. {4}

We do these in batches and keep the fried green tomatoes warm in a 200 F oven.

We made fried green tomatoes for our family gathering. The grandsons had never tasted them before. This is a direct quote from one of them, “Papa, you’re killing me!” Their challenge was to wait for them to cool enough so that they could tear into them.

Tutti a tavola è pronto!

Un caro saluto e alla prossima.

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This is similar to the deep fryer we use. It has been cranking out delicious fried green tomatoes, fish, and chicken for many years. We use peanut oil because we find that it has a high flash point and there is no “off” taste with it. Our fried food always turn out perfectly and not greasy at all.

Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe: A Summer Ambrosia

Once you taste fried green tomatoes you’ll know what all the fuss is about. It’s nothing like you’ve ever tasted before. Once you start nibbling on them you won’t want to stop. They make a delicious addition to a sandwich or eat them plain or even with a spicy creamy dipping sauce. Believe me, once you’ve sampled the delicious crunchy slices, you’ll want to make them often.
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