Pickled Green Tomatoes Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Pickled Green Tomatoes Recipe

A sweet green tomato pickle flavored with whole allspice berries, onions, and bay leaves. Make this at the end of the growing season with any fruit that hasn't ripened yet and enjoy it all winter as a delicious vegetable side dish.

Course Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine British, Polish

Keyword green tomatoes

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 30

Infusing time 1

Total Time 2

Servings Pints

Calories 235kcal

Author Tanya Anderson

Cost $10

Equipment

5 wide-mouth pint jars with 2-piece lids
water bath canner or tall pot
jar lifter

Ingredients

2.2 lbs green tomatoes 1 kg
1 red bell peppers
2 onions medium-size
1.5 cups white vinegar 5% acidity*
1.5 cups water
1/4 cup white sugar
10 allspice berries
5 bay leaves
3 tsp salt
additional spices, if desired*

Instructions

Prepare the Vegetables

The larger the green tomatoes you use, the better, but you can use any size that you have including green cherry tomatoes. Wash and then cut the tomatoes into 1/4" (0.5 cm) slices. Add them to a large bowl.
Thinly slice the sweet red peppers and onions and add them to the bowl, too.

Make the Brine

Add all of the ingredients needed for the brine to a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and stir to dissolve the salt and sugar.
Pour the scalding hot brine over the vegetables. Cover with a tea towel and leave to infuse for an hour, stirring a few times during that time.

Pack the Pickled Green Tomatoes in Jars

With fifteen minutes to go on the infusing time, place five clean pint jars in the oven and turn it on to the lowest temperature. This is to warm the jars in preparation for water bath canning.
Prepare the water bath canner (or tall pot) by filling it with enough water to cover the pint jars by an inch. Heat the water to simmering.
At the end of an hour, the green tomatoes will be softened and will have started the pickling process.
Take the warm jars from the oven and place them on the counter. Remove the bay leaves and allspice from the brine, and put one bay leaf and two allspice berries at the bottom of each jar. The bay leaves will be easier to find, but if you're having trouble with the allspice, just add them to the jars as you fill them.
Layer the green tomatoes, onions, and red peppers in the jars, squishing them down as you go. Fill the jars to a half-inch (1 cm) of the top. Having wide-mouth jars really helps get larger slices of tomato in.
When the jars are filled with vegetables, pour the brine over them, filling so that they have a 1-cm / half-inch headspace (headspace is the space between the top of the food and the top of the jar rim). Use a butter knife to remove any air bubbles and add more brine, if needed.

Water Bath Canning

To make our preserves truly shelf stable, we water bath can the jars. This kills any lingering microbes on or in the jars and helps with a good seal.
Wipe the rim of each of the jars clean, then center the lid on the jar and screw the band until finger tight. This means to screw on until you meet resistance and then give the band another good turn with your fingertips. The idea is to keep the brine from escaping but to allow air to vent from the jars during processing.
If you're using an ordinary pot, first push a tea towel or other sturdy cloth to the bottom of the pot with a spoon. You don't want the jars sitting directly on the hot bottom surface of the pan, or they could crack. Lower the warm jars into the simmering water using a jar lifter and put a lid on the pot.
Bring the water to a rolling boil, and then begin timing. Leave the jars in the water for fifteen minutes.
After fifteen minutes, turn the heat off, remove the lid, and leave it to set for five minutes. Then, remove the jars using a jar lifter and set them on the counter to cool and for the lids to seal. Once cooled and sealed, the pickled green tomatoes have a one-year shelf-life if kept in a cool, dark place.

Notes

* This recipe is best made with ordinary white distilled vinegar, but you can alternatively use white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. In Poland, it's traditional to use a stronger 10% acidity vinegar to make this recipe. I've not included it since it can be difficult for some people to source. However, if you'd like to use it, reduce the amount of vinegar called for by half and increase the water amount to make up the difference.

* Although the traditional Polish recipe requires allspice, you could add other spices if you wish. Black peppercorns, mustard seeds, coriander, red pepper flakes, dill seeds, celery seeds, and garlic cloves are all great choices.

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