I planted some tomatoes in our backyard this year. I was not sure what would be the yield, so in the small vegetable patch, I planted 8 plants. They grew so big and soon filled with tomatoes. I planted mostly cherry tomatoes of different kind, along with 1 bigger variety, since Ishaan loves the tiny juicy cherry tomatoes. I have not bought any cherry tomatoes in last 4-5 months. Last week we had to do some lawn work and I had to cut down the low hanging branches. When I did that, I got almost 3 kgs (around 6lbs) of tomatoes, most of which were still green. I was sure I couldn’t use them all, so I wanted to make green tomato pickle. When I googled, I found this recipe by indosungod. I mostly followed that recipe but I thought ginger would give it some extra flavor.  So I used some steps from my aayi’s  avale hinDi. The pickle came out so good. I think I will be making this again in future.
Pictorial:
Make the spice powder by frying mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida and powdering them.
Cut the tomatoes. Fry chillies, curry leaves, ginger and then add tomatoes.
Add the masalas when the tomatoes have softened. Add the lemon juice and cook.
For some extra aroma, add a seasoning of curry leaves at the end.

Green Tomato Pickle
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 kgs green tomatoes
- 6-7 green chillies
- 1 tbl spn chopped ginger
- 1 tea spn mustard seeds
- 1/2 tea spn turmeric powder
- A small pea sized asafoetida stone or 1/2 tea spn powder
- 1/2 tea spn methi fenugreek seeds
- 3 tbl spn red chilli powder
- 10 curry leaves
- 1/8 cup lemon juice
- 1/8 cup + 1 tbl spn oil
- 1/8 cup salt
Instructions
- Clean green tomatoes.
- I cut half of them to pieces to have some chunks and remaining half I added to food processor and pulsed them.
- In a dry small kadai, heat a tea spoon oil and add asafoetida.
- When a nice aroma comes out, add mustard and fenugreek seeds.
- Take it on a clean mortar or a spice blender.
- Switch off heat, when the pan is still warm, add chilli powder and turmeric, keep mixing.
- When it cools down to room temperature, grind it to a powder (I use my mortar and pestle to powder).
- In a big thick bottomed pan, Heat remaining oil.
- Add ginger, half curry leaves, green chillies pieces, salt.
- When a nice aroma comes out, add tomatoes.
- Cover the lid and let it cook for about 30mins.
- Add the chilli powder, ground powder, lemon juice, cook for another 10mins.
- Switch off the heat.
- In the kadai that was used to make the powder, heat little oil and add remaining curry leaves.
- Pour this over the pickle.
- Put the pickle in clean dry bottles.
- Close the lid tightly. When it cools down to room temperature, store in fridge.
- It remains good for few months.
Hi Shilpa ,
Nice to read your Recipe. Glad to know that you live in Kansas
My Son and his family stay’s in Kansas too. i am also a Foodie freak.
Best Regards
Never heard of green tomatoes chutney.Seems tasty.Sure I would try. Can I add jaggery to it?And garlic in place of hing?
Yes that should work. I would suggest adding garlic to either seasoning or with ginger instead of adding to powder.
Looks to be very tempting
Will try out
Thanks
How much turmeric? Not mentioned in the ingredients list, so I shall try a tablespoon.
1/2 tea spn is good.
I fell in love with Indian cooking as a teenager. I particularly like to cook daal. I also love to garden, and have so many green cherry tomatoes. I have never made pickle, but I knew it was the time to try. This is a recipe I plan to keep!
How wonderful! To keep your inheritance of knowledge, in cooking, fresh and alive. Thankyou.
I have a lot of green tomatoes to use up this year, and I am wondering if this recipe can be canned in a hot water bath canner. It sounds really delicious, and I think that it would make nice Christmas gifts if it could be canned for longer term storage without refrigeration. Thanks!
Sorry for late reply. Yes definitely. It can be canned as well