I know I exaggerate a lot, but I swear I have over 50 green tomatoes sitting on my counter.
Apparently when my tomato plants started to ripen, they forgot that it was supposed to happen in September, not in late October. I have been waiting since May to pull red juicy delicious Roma tomatoes from my plants. I literally had visions of myself pulling a red beauty from the vine, taking a bite out of the tomato with my feet bare in the summer grass, having to bend over to prevent the tomato juices from getting on my clothes. I kid you not, this is what I think about in my spare time — which of course, could open a whole other can of worms about the ridiculous things I think about, but we’ll save that for another time.
But no, those tomatoes just wouldn’t cut me a break. All I got from my tomato plants this year were unripe green tomatoes. Which, of course, is never a bad thing if you are a southern belle. And if you’re not a southern belle (::ahem:: me), you can at least pretend like you’re talking to Paula in the kitchen while you bake green tomatoes instead of fry them. I’m sure Paula just had a panic attack talking about me not frying something.
Which brings me to another point — have you ever even seen the movie Fried Green Tomatoes? I haven’t. But I want to watch it on Netflix tonight with a plate of green tomatoes in one hand and the lemon dill dipping sauce in the other. And then my mom is going to get mad at me for not inviting her over for unfried green tomatoes and movie watching.
The really awesome thing about this recipe is that it’s super easy. All you have to do is slice, dip, coat, and bake. And then you can feel free to burn your tongue on the 3 tomatoes you ate the second they came out of the oven. We can walk together saying fun things like “sally sells sea shells by the sea shore” with our new lisps from burning off all our taste buds.
Unfried Green Tomatoes with Lemon Dill Dipping Sauce
Makes: 20-25 slices
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Tomatoes:
- 4 green tomatoes
- 1/2 cup white rice flour (you can use any all purpose flour)
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tbsp. nutritional yeast
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
- 2 flax eggs
- 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp. agave nectar
Lemon Dill Dipping Sauce:
- 3 tbsp. hummus
- 2 tbsp. water
- 3/4 tbsp. lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp. dill
- 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions: Begin by prepping your flax eggs. Mix 2 tbsp. ground flax with 6 tbsp. warm water and set aside to gel for five minutes. In another bowl, mix your rice flour, bread crumbs, nutritional yeast, garlic powder and salt/pepper. Once the flax eggs have gelled, add the milk, agave, and apple cider vinegar to the eggs. You should have a bowl for the dry ingredients and a bowl for the wet. To prep your tomatoes, wash and slice them to about a 1/4 inch thickness. Dip the tomato slices in the egg/milk mixture and then coat them in the flour mixture. Once all tomatoes have been coated, place foil on a cooking sheet and cover with a wire rack. In a single layer, lay the tomato slices on the wire rack (so they get crispy and not soggy!) and bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes, flipping once halfway. Serve with the lemon dill dipping sauce.
For the dipping sauce, combine the hummus, water, lemon juice, dill, garlic powder, and salt/pepper and whisk. Enjoy!
Can I just also add I’ve never eaten a green tomato in my life? And I may or may not have never understood what the big hype about green tomatoes were? I definitely understand now. Green tomatoes are the new dark chocolate.
Okay, I laughed just typing that. Green tomatoes are not the new dark chocolate, but they’re good in a “we have our own category” category if one were to exist.
Have a good night y’all.
That felt so southern.
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