Fried green tomato fritters are way easier to make than traditional fried green tomatoes, but they are every bit as delicious!
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For many of you across the northern hemisphere — those who are currently wrapping yourselves in full arctic expedition gear just to get to work — this will not be a timely post.
Here in dull-weather California, however, I still have a good ten pounds left of unripe green tomatoes in my fridge, thanks to my weirdly extended harvest of Sungolds and Early Cascades.
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The other day I was frying some unripe tomatoes in the usual way, first slicing them, then dredging and coating each individual slice in batter. DELICIOUS, but the process is a hassle—especially with smaller tomato varieties, which are harder to slice, coat, and handle.
When I was done frying all the sliced tomatoes, I mixed the coating ingredients up and made one big, plain fritter. Then I thought: why not just mix some diced green tomato in there, too? It worked beautifully! Not only was it an easier technique than the traditional slice-dredge-coat, but also a much more efficient way to make use of all those baby green cherry tomatoes.
How to make fried green tomato fritters
Making green tomato fritters is a simple process:
- Mix cornmeal, flour, salt, pepper, and baking powder.
- Mix in buttermilk and an egg.
- Stir in some diced green tomatoes, corn, and onion.
- Drop the batter by heaping spoonfuls into hot oil in a skillet.
- Cook until browned on both sides.
- Enjoy!
I alternated between eating them plain, right out of the skillet (with an extra pinch of salt and pepper, to suit my extreme love of both), and dipping them in Franks Red Hot Sauce because I am addicted to that stuff.
Next time I’m dreaming about serving them with cilantro dipping sauce, chipotle aioli, roasted pepper salsa—or in a Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato Fritter sandwich.
This is a great way to use up summer produce. Some of my other favorite summer recipes include this Watermelon and Feta Salad and this Texas Corn Succotash.
And if you still have green tomatoes left, not to worry! Little House Big Alaska has a handy post on how to ripen green tomatoes!
Need ideas for using up leftover buttermilk? Try these recipes
- Air Fryer Bang Bang Shrimp
- Air Fryer Fried Pickles
- Buttermilk Bread
- Sriracha Ranch Dressing
- Buttermilk Biscuits
Fried Green Tomato Fritters
Makes about 12 fritters.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup finely diced green tomatoes 1/4" or smaller
- 1/2 cup corn kernels fresh or frozen
- 1/4 onion diced small
- Vegetable oil for frying
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, salt, pepper, and
baking powder. - In a small bowl, beat the buttermilk and egg together and then add it to the dry ingredients and mix well.
Add the green tomatoes, corn, and onion and mix well. - Put about ¼-inch of oil in a large skillet and heat it over
medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add heaping spoonfuls of the batter to the pan, pressing them with the back of the spoon to flatten a bit if necessary. You’ll have to cook the fritters in several batches, 3 or 4 to a pan depending on the size of your pan. - Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until nicely browned on the bottom and you see holes formed on the top. Flip over and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more, until the second side is browned. Transfer the cooked fritters to a paper towel-lined plate.
- Repeat until all of the batter has been cooked.
- Serve hot.
Nutrition
Would tomatillos work for this?
I’d guess YES. Let us know!
Brilliant!
We don’t eat eggs in our house so I increased buttermilk to 1 cup and added 1/3 C of parmesan cheese and it was delicious!
That’s great to know! Thanks for sharing your egg-free variation!
This is a marvelous recipe. The fritters are delicious and easy to prepare. I’m wishing I had more green tomatoes!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe, Sandi! I love it too. Isn’t that a funny thing about green tomatoes–you have too many until you figure out what to do with them and then you never have enough!
I followed the recipe carefully, except I didn’t have buttermilk, so used the powdered version. The batter turned out to be runny, so don’t know if that was the reason. I ended up with probably twice the number of patties. Still, they were delicious.
Hi Carol! I’m glad they turned out well!
Well picking an abundance of cherry tomatoes this week, quite a few of the tomato branches broke off with dozens of green tomatoes on them. My goal was to try to ripen them in my windowsill but now I’m going to try this!
That’s excellent, Tina! This recipe is a perfect way to use up those green cherry tomatoes!
These are great! I replaced cornmeal with cornflower and ground flax seed.. I’m going to try this with sliced rubber beans instead of green toms, as these have finally run out. Great with green tomato salsa
Runner… lol
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Sue! The beans sound like a great idea (and I LOL’d at “rubber beans”)
🙄🤣🤣🤣
I just bought a dehydrator. Thinking about drying and pulverizing into a coarse green tomato powder. I may try this recipe and use that in the batter…opinions?
Just made these with a couple changes and they were amazing!! Having them for lunch with leftover red lentil soup. Didn’t have corn so just added more green tomatoes, onions and an Anaheim chili. Used sour milk in place of the buttermilk (use what you have, I always say…) I’ll definitely make them again and again! Thanks for this 🙂