Pickled Green Tomatoes (Old Fashioned Canning Recipe)

Pickled green tomatoes are a simple way to use up unripe tomatoes before the first hard frost takes them. They stay firm in the jar and come out tangy and sharp, somewhere between a dill pickle and a green olive.

One old-fashioned brine covers four different spice mixes, so you can put up several kinds at once, adjusting the spices in each jar.

Green tomatoes are firmer and more acidic than ripe ones, and that’s exactly what you want in a pickle. They hold their shape through the canner instead of slumping into mush. A jar of these is good next to a bowl of chili, on a cheese board, or chopped into potato salad.

The recipe is one basic brine with four spice mixes: plain, dill, spicy, and bread and butter. The spices go straight into each jar, so one pot of brine can fill four kinds of pickles. If you’d rather follow one flavor all the way through, I have separate recipes for dill pickled green tomatoes, sweet pickled green tomatoes, and spicy pickled green tomatoes.

The brine follows the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, which carries a tested process for pickled green tomatoes. The National Center for Home Food Preservation publishes tested green tomato pickles too.

If pickling isn’t what you’re after, you can also water bath can plain green tomato slices for frying later.

Choosing Green Tomatoes for Pickling

Use tomatoes that are fully green and firm, with no blush of pink or yellow on them. A tomato that has started to turn will soften in the brine. Pick them the day you plan to can if you can manage it, since a week on the counter costs you crunch.

Any variety works. Heirloom or hybrid, cherry or slicer, paste or beefsteak, the recipe is the same. Big tomatoes get sliced or quartered so they pack well and pickle evenly. Small ones can go in whole. If you’re working with whole cherry tomatoes, prick each one with a toothpick first so it doesn’t burst in the canner.

Ingredients for Pickled Green Tomatoes

This is a short ingredient list. The brine is equal parts vinegar and water, and everything past that is flavor.

Full amounts are in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. What matters up here is what each ingredient does and where you have room to change things.

• Green Tomatoes: Fully green and firm, with no color starting to show. Sliced, quartered, or left whole if they’re small.
• Vinegar: White vinegar or cider vinegar at 5 percent acidity. The acid is what makes these safe to can, so it can’t be cut with extra water.
• Water: Tap water is fine unless yours is very hard, which can cloud the brine. Filtered or distilled water fixes that.
• Pickling Salt: Use pickling or canning salt rather than table salt. Iodine and anti-caking agents cloud the brine and darken the pickles.
• Sugar: Optional in the basic brine, where it rounds off the sharp edge. The bread-and-butter mix uses a good deal more.
• Spices: Garlic, dill, mustard seed, peppercorns, celery seed, and turmeric, depending on the mix you choose. Whole spices keep the brine clear, and my homemade pickling spice works here too.
• Pickle Crisp: Optional. Calcium chloride keeps the tomatoes firmer in the jar, and it’s the simplest fix if a past batch came out soft.

Everything beyond the tomatoes, vinegar, water, and salt is up to your taste. The one thing that stays put is the ratio of vinegar to water.

Recipes for Green Tomato Pickles

The spices go into the jars rather than into the brine, so every jar in the canner can be different. Pick a mix, drop it in the bottom of the jar, and pour the same brine over all of them. Any pickling seasoning works, and I often borrow the spices from my dill pickle canning recipe.

These are the four mixes I come back to. Two pints of each fills a canner load and gives you a shelf you won’t get bored of by February.

• Plain: 1 teaspoon mustard seed, 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, and 1 garlic clove per pint. This is the one I make most.
• Dill: 1 head of fresh dill or 2 teaspoons dill seed, 1 bay leaf, and 1 garlic clove per pint. Closest to a classic dill pickle.
• Spicy: 1 to 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes and 1/2 to 1 teaspoon black peppercorns per pint. Start at the low end, since the heat builds in the jar.
• Bread and Butter: A few slices of onion, 1 garlic clove, 1 teaspoon mustard seed, 1/2 teaspoon celery seed, and 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric per pint, with the sugar in the brine raised to 1 cup. This is the only one that changes the brine, but they’re popular, and I usually make a whole batch of these!

Those amounts are per pint, so use twice as much in a quart jar. None of it changes whether the recipe is safe to can. Add extra garlic or skip the peppercorns without a second thought.

How to Pickle Green Tomatoes

Start by washing the tomatoes and cutting them to size. Slices, halves, and quarters all work, and small ones can stay whole. Aim for pieces that fit in the jar without being crammed in.

Bring the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar to a boil in a saucepan, then simmer a few minutes until the salt dissolves. Turn off the heat and leave the pot on the stove so the brine stays hot.

Pack the tomatoes raw into hot jars with your spice mix and any onion or garlic. Leave 1/2 inch headspace. Raw packing keeps the pieces firm. Cooking them first softens them before they ever reach the canner. Add Pickle Crisp now if you’re using it, at 1/8 teaspoon per pint.

Pour the hot brine over the tomatoes, still holding 1/2 inch headspace. Run a bubble remover or a chopstick around the inside of each jar to release trapped air. Top the brine back up if the level dropped, wipe the rims, and cap with two-part canning lids.

If you’re making refrigerator pickles, let the jars cool on the counter and then move them to the fridge. Give them at least two days before you open one, and a week is better. For shelf stable jars, go straight on to canning.

Canning Green Tomato Pickles

Canning is optional here, but it’s what gets the jars off the counter and onto the pantry shelf where they’re not taking up refrigerator space. If you’re canning, get your water bath canner going before you start filling jars.

This is a raw pack, so preheat the canner water to about 140 degrees F. Hot, but not yet simmering. Load the filled jars onto the rack, covered by an inch or two of water, and bring the canner to a full rolling boil. New to this part? My guide to water bath canning for beginners walks through the whole setup.

Process pints for 15 minutes or quarts for 20 minutes, starting the timer once the water is boiling hard. Adjust the time for your altitude using the chart below.

When the time is up, turn off the heat. Let the jars stand in the canner another 5 minutes before you lift them out. That rest cuts down on siphoning, which is brine escaping as the jars come out. Move them to a towel on the counter and leave them alone for 12 to 24 hours.

Check the seals the next day. Any jar that didn’t seal goes in the refrigerator to be eaten first. Give the sealed jars at least two weeks before you open one, because the brine needs that long to work its way into the tomatoes.

Tips for Crisp Pickled Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes start out firmer than ripe ones, but they can still go soft on you. Use fruit that is fully green and freshly picked, and cut it on the thick side. Thin slices lose their bite in the canner no matter what else you do.

Pickle Crisp at 1/8 teaspoon per pint is the simplest insurance, and it goes in the jar right before the brine. The old-fashioned option is a pickling lime soak. It gives a very crisp pickle, but it adds an overnight step and a lot of rinsing. I walk through that whole process in my cucumber lime pickle recipe. Whichever you use, don’t process past the listed time. Extra minutes in the canner soften everything.

Ways to Use Pickled Green Tomatoes

These are good straight from the jar, cold, standing at the open fridge. They cut through rich food, so they belong next to fried fish, a bowl of chili and cornbread, or a plate of pulled pork. On a cheese board, they do the job a cornichon usually does.

Chopped small, they go into potato salad, egg salad, or tartar sauce. A spoonful of the brine sharpens up a vinaigrette. There’s even a cocktail called the Dirty Jane built on pickled green cherry tomatoes. If you’d rather bake with your harvest, there’s green tomato pie filling.

And if you’re not canning, I also have a much longer list of green tomato recipes for the fresh eating side of things.

Storage and Shelf Life

Sealed jars hold their quality on the pantry shelf for about 18 months, and they stay safe well past that as long as the seal is good. Store them somewhere cool and dark with the bands off. A failed seal is obvious that way. Refrigerate after opening.

Refrigerator pickles that were never canned keep for several months. Use a clean utensil each time and keep the tomatoes under the brine. They’ll be fine for as long as you have the fridge space.

If you made refrigerator pickles and later decide you want them shelf stable, you can still can them. Empty the jars into a pot and heat the contents through. Then repack into hot jars and process as usual. Cold jars won’t heat through properly in the canner, and the thermal shock can crack the glass.

Pickled Green Tomatoes FAQs

I’ve had a lot of reader questions on this one over the years, so here are the ones that come up most.

Green Tomato Canning Recipes

There’s more to do with a bucket of green tomatoes than pickles.

Southern Chow Chow (Traditional Green Tomato Relish)

Old-Fashioned Green Tomato Jam

Canning Green Tomatoes

Vegetable Pickling Recipes

Pickling season doesn’t stop at tomatoes.

Pickled Dilly Beans (Dill Pickled Green Beans)

Pickled Banana Peppers

Canning Sauerkraut