This Southern fried green tomatoes recipe can be made as simple as you like. This recipe is for traditional, simple fried green tomatoes but you can easily create more variety if you like. Make them gluten-free, or jazz your fried green tomatoes up with an easy remoulade sauce for dipping. If you’re feeling fancy, I’m including a recipe for pork belly croutons to go on top! How’s that for options?
Whether you’re a purist when it comes to your fried green tomatoes or you like to add a little adventure to this southern fried dish, you’ll find what you’re looking for with this fried green tomatoes recipe.
Where to Buy Green Tomatoes
Finding green tomatoes can be a challenge. I’ve mostly grown my own or been gifted with them out of other people’s gardens. However, I found the green tomatoes for this recipe at Kroger surprisingly! They were the last three in the store and one had started to ripen slightly but it wound up working well anyway. If you don’t have a garden (or a friend with one) try your local farmer’s market during the summer months. They should be able to hook you up!
Ingredient Tips
- Tomatoes – Finding the perfect tomato can be a challenge, but there are some helpful tips to keep in mind when at your local grocery store. Look for firm green tomatoes that have not yet begun to ripen. If you can’t find any solid green tomatoes, go for ones with just a little bit of orange on them. The most important thing is finding tomatoes that are firm enough to fry. Don’t shy away from tomatoes that have started to change color as long as they still feel firm. Sometimes you have to make do with what you can find, especially outside the summer months and firmness is more important than color.
- Starch – Use cornstarch or potato starch to coat your “naked” tomatoes before dipping them in egg wash and breading them. Tapioca flour will probably work too.
- Bread crumbs (use GF breadcrumbs if you are making gluten-free fried green tomatoes) – I actually used Italian-style gluten-free breadcrumbs for this recipe because that’s what I happened to have on hand and Hubs and I both loved it. Use plain if you prefer.
- Ground yellow cornmeal – You want plain, ground yellow cornmeal and not cornmeal mix which contains flour among other things. This yields the best crunchy texture anyway, in my opinion, but it’s especially important if you are making gluten-free fried green tomatoes
Let’s start with the basic fried green tomatoes recipe (I’ll include what I used to make them gluten-free for Hubs) and you can decide from there if you want to add the dipping sauce and pork belly croutons or keep things simple. Print off the recipe below so you’ll know how to fry green tomatoes the classic way and keep reading for a delicious dipping sauce for fried green tomatoes.
Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 medium firm green tomatoes
- ¼ cup cornstarch or potato starch
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup bread crumbs use GF linked below if needed
- ½ cup ground yellow cornmeal*
- oil for frying
- salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Slice tomatoes sandwich-style about 1/4" thick. Set aside
- Blend breadcrumbs, cornmeal, salt, and pepper together on a dinner plate. Set aside
- Dredge the sliced tomatoes in cornstarch or potato starch
- In a bowl, whisk together two eggs and a teaspoon of water to make an egg wash
- Coat tomato slices in egg wash then dredge in breadcrumb mixture.
- Fry on each side in an iron skillet over medium to medium-high heat in 1/2" of vegetable oil
- Use tongs to remove tomatoes from the skillet and place on paper towels to drain and cool.
- Serve warm with my easy remoulade sauce for dipping and pork belly croutons!
Notes
Making the Dipping Sauce
You can make an easy remoulade sauce as your dipping sauce for fried green tomatoes, and you probably already have the ingredients on hand! Remoulade sauce (at least in the South) just refers to an easy sauce made with a mayonnaise base and some spice.
Use this easy remoulade sauce as a dipping sauce for fried green tomatoes or drizzle it over the tops of your plated tomatoes for a beautiful presentation. All I do is mix the following ingredients.
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- Sriracha sauce to taste (Start with a 1/2 teaspoon and work your way up. I like a lot of heat and wind up using closer to a tablespoon).
That’s it! You can add a little lemon juice or garlic powder if you want to get fancy but I find these three simple ingredients make a delicious sauce that you can whip up in literally under a minute.
Now that you know how to fry green tomatoes and made and easy dipping sauce to go with them, do you want to go for these keto croutons too? I first tasted pork belly croutons with fried green tomatoes at a Charleston restaurant called Cru Cafe. Now I don’t want to eat them any other way!
Optional Pork Belly Croutons
The flavor of the pork belly complimented my easy remoulade sauce and gluten-free fried green tomatoes perfectly. Here’s how to make these keto croutons for your fried green tomatoes (or for salads and other dishes if you’re on a low-carb diet.)
Pork Belly Croutons (low carb)
Ingredients
- 8 oz pre-cooked pork belly
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Dice the pork belly into cubes
- Heat oil about 1/4" high in an iron skillet over medium to medium high heat
- Add pork belly cubes and rotate with tongs to ensure all four sides are brown
- Cook until crispy but not tough. It's best to start with one cube to see how long you'll need to fry on each side. For me it was less that 30 seconds per side.
- Serve with fried green tomatoes or use as keto croutons for your salads
Notes
So what will it be, traditional recipe or jazzed up with sauce and croutons? No matter how you slice it (pun intended), it’s hard to go wrong with this Southern favorite.
