Italian Green Tomato Preserves

Green tomato preserves are an old-fashioned Italian preserve, with thin slices of unripe tomato suspended in a honey and vanilla syrup. Fresh lemon keeps them a little tart, and they’re just as good on morning toast as they are next to a soft Italian cheese.

Every fall, frost beats the tomato patch here in Vermont, leaving me with buckets of tomatoes that will never ripen. Most of mine go into pickles and relishes from my list of green tomato canning recipes, and some go into something sweet.

Italian cooks also make a sweet preserve from green tomatoes, and it’s a classic with cheese. This one has honey, fresh lemon, and a vanilla bean, and the tomatoes stay in thin, glossy slices.

I adapted the recipe in Preserving Italy by Domenica Marchetti, whose mother made green tomato preserves almost every year when Domenica was growing up.

It’s a different jar from my green tomato jam and green tomato marmalade. For the jam, I chop the tomatoes, cook them with lemons and cinnamon, and pull the lemons out before jarring. The marmalade has a whole orange and a whole lemon sliced right into it.

This one gets honey and vanilla, with only lemon peel and juice for citrus. It has no boxed pectin, and like any jam without added pectin, it cooks down until it’s thick enough to spread.

If you’d rather keep your green tomatoes savory, green tomato salsa verde and green tomato chutney handle a lot of tomatoes at once, and pickled green tomatoes are the classic. For fresh eating, I’ve also got a long list of green tomato recipes, including plenty of meals and baked goods.

What Are Green Tomato Preserves?

Preserve recipes hold whole pieces of fruit in a thick syrup, and they differ from regular jam or marmalade. Jam starts with chopped or crushed fruit and cooks down into a spread, and marmalade has thin slices of whole citrus, peel and all.

Green tomatoes make a good preserve because they’re firm. A long cook in sugar turns the thin slices tender and translucent, and they hold their shape instead of falling apart in the pot.

They’re also tart and full of pectin, so old cookbooks often put them in sweet preserves.

Ingredients for Italian Green Tomato Preserves

There are six ingredients, and the vanilla bean is the only one you might have to go looking for.

• Green tomatoes: Firm and fully green, with no blush of color. Any variety works. Don’t peel them. I never peel green tomatoes for canning, since the skins stay tender and unripe tomatoes are close to impossible to peel anyway.
• Lemon: A large lemon, peel and juice both. Take the peel off in strips with a vegetable peeler, and leave the bitter white pith behind. If your lemon is small, juice a second one so you have the full amount of juice in the recipe card. Don’t cut it back.
• Sugar: Plain granulated white sugar. It sweetens, draws the juice out of the tomatoes, and candies the slices so they hold together.
• Honey: A mild one, like clover or a light wildflower honey. Buckwheat and other dark honeys taste strong enough to cover up the vanilla.
• Coarse sea salt: Only a tiny bit. It doesn’t make the preserves salty, and it keeps all that sugar from tasting flat.
• Vanilla bean: Split it open, scrape the seeds into the pot, and let the pod simmer right along with the tomatoes. Take the pod out before the preserves go into jars.

Use a wide, heavy-bottomed pot that won’t react with the lemon, like stainless steel or enameled cast iron. I use the widest pot I have for preserves like this, because a wide pot cooks the water off faster, and a heavy bottom keeps the sugar from scorching.

How to Make Italian Green Tomato Preserves

This one-pot recipe needs no overnight soak. Everything goes into the pot together and simmers for about 45 minutes. The ratio is 2 pounds green tomatoes to 2 1/2 cups sugar and 1/3 cup honey, plus the peel and juice of one large lemon.

If you’re working by weight, that’s 2 pounds of green tomatoes to about 1 pound 2 ounces of sugar.

Slice the Tomatoes

Core the tomatoes and cut them lengthwise into quarters, then look at the seeds in the first one.

If they’re small and soft, leave them. If they’re mature, scrape them out with a spoon.

Cut each quarter crosswise into thin slices. Keep them as even as you can, so they all turn translucent at about the same time.

Fill the Pot

Put a small plate in the freezer for testing later. Peel the lemon in strips with a vegetable peeler, then juice it.

Add the tomato slices to the pot with the lemon peel and juice, sugar, honey, and salt.

Slice the vanilla bean open lengthwise with a paring knife. Scrape the seeds into the pot, then drop in the pod.

Cook the Preserves

Set the pot over medium-high heat and bring it to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Then reduce to medium and keep it at a lively simmer. Plan on 40 to 45 minutes.

Stir often, especially near the end, because a pot with this much sugar scorches fast. It’s ready at 220 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, and you can see it too. The syrup turns glossy and thick enough to spread, and the slices go translucent.

For a second check, drop a spoonful onto the cold plate, wait a minute, and push it with a fingertip. It should hold its shape and wrinkle a little instead of running.

Fish out the vanilla pod, leave the lemon peel in, and jar the preserves while they’re hot.

Canning Italian Green Tomato Preserves

Fill your water bath canner and put it on to heat before the tomatoes go on the stove. A full canner takes a long time to boil. Wash the jars and keep them warm, and set out the lids, bands, canning funnel, and jar lifter.

Ladle the hot preserves into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Run a bubble tool around the inside of each jar, wipe the rims clean, set the lids on, and screw the bands on fingertip tight.

Lower the jars into the canner, and make sure at least an inch of water covers them. Process pints, half pints, or quarter pints for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner, adjusting for altitude. Turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, and let the jars sit 5 more minutes before lifting them out.

I put mine up in pints, and the time is the same for all three jar sizes. Set the jars on a towel and let them cool, undisturbed, for 12 to 24 hours.

Setting Notes

These preserves thicken as they cool, so you can’t judge them in the pot. Give the jars 24 to 48 hours before you decide anything about the texture.

What you want is a soft, spreadable preserve, with whole slices in a syrup that clings to them. It won’t stand up on a spoon like a firm jam.

The gel stage is 220 degrees F at sea level, and it drops about 1 degree for every 500 feet you go up. At 2,500 feet, you’re looking for about 215 degrees F.

If it’s still runny after two days, the pot probably came off the heat before it reached the gel stage. My guide to troubleshooting jelly set covers how to recook a batch. Worst case, you’ve made green tomato syrup, and it’s very good on pancakes.

Ways to Use Italian Green Tomato Preserves

Spread them on toast in the morning, the way the book suggests. A slice of crusty bread or an English muffin works just as well.

You can also spoon them over vanilla ice cream or plain yogurt, or put a dollop on a warm biscuit.

They also belong on a cheese board. The book pairs them with a rich Italian cheese like Taleggio or robiola.

Last year, I served them on my holiday charcuterie board with local cheese, pickled pears, pickled green tomatoes, cranberry orange marmalade, pickled carrots, pickled peppers, and green tomato marmalade. That board had green tomatoes on it three different ways.

Storage and Shelf Life

After 12 to 24 hours, press the center of each lid. A sealed lid is firm and slightly concave, and it won’t flex under your finger.

Remove the bands, wipe the jars, and label them. Store them somewhere cool and dark, and use them within 12 to 18 months.

If a jar doesn’t seal, refrigerate it and use it within 2 weeks. If you catch it within 24 hours, you can reprocess it with a new lid. Once a jar is open, keep it in the fridge and use it within 1 to 2 weeks.

With a batch this small, you don’t need to can them. They keep about 2 weeks in the fridge, or up to 6 months in the freezer. Use straight-sided, freezer-safe jars, since a shouldered jar can crack as the preserves expand, and leave 1 inch of headspace.

More Ways to Preserve Green Tomatoes

There aren’t many sweet green tomato recipes. Green tomato jam and green tomato marmalade are the closest, and green tomato pie filling makes a pie that tastes a lot like apple.

Most green tomato recipes go savory. Pickled green tomatoes are the classic, southern chow chow and green tomato piccalilli are the old relishes, and green tomato enchilada sauce uses up a big batch at once.

If you like preserves with whole pieces of fruit in syrup, try old-fashioned peach preserves, pear preserves, cherry preserves, or watermelon rind preserves. There are lots more in my fruit canning recipes.

Italian Green Tomato Preserves FAQs

A few quick answers on texture, vanilla, and how these compare to green tomato jam and marmalade.

Green Tomato Canning Recipes

There’s a lot more to do with a bucket of unripe tomatoes.

Southern Chow Chow (Traditional Green Tomato Relish)

Old-Fashioned Green Tomato Jam

Pickled Green Tomatoes (Old Fashioned Canning Recipe)

Looking for another small batch to put up this week? Here are more jam canning recipes, and the rest of my water bath canning recipes if the canner’s already out.

Old-Fashioned Preserves

More old-fashioned recipes with whole pieces of fruit in a thick syrup.

Old-Fashioned Pear Preserves

Orange Slices in Honey Syrup

Old Fashioned Cherry Preserves