As a writer by trade, I don’t often struggle to find the right words to describe my feelings. But words utterly fail me when I try to describe how much I love tomatoes. To give you an idea:

I have had a caprese salad for lunch almost every single day for the past five weeks. This happens every summer.

A couple of years ago, my tomato consumption outstripped my food budget. Instead of cutting back, I taught myself how to garden—prepping soil, starting seeds, and trellising plants—and grew my own.

And last summer, I bought a twenty-pound box of tomatoes at the farmers market. I ate nothing but tomatoes–pan con tomate, caprese, gazpacho, and pasta–for a week. I then bought another twenty-pound box the following weekend.

So with a love this true, it cuts me deep when people tell me they don’t like tomatoes. I’m convinced any ambivalence about tomatoes stems from user error. So here, my treatise on tomatoes: how to find the best ones, how to store them until they’re ready to eat, and what to cook with your haul.

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One year ago: Asian Chicken Salad with Snap Peas and Bok Choi
Two years ago: Salade Niçoise, My Way or Yours + A Taste of Provence
Three years ago: Squash Blossom Strozzapreti

And for my Australians:
Six months ago: Curried Lentil, Coconut, and Tomato Soup
One and a half years ago: Yogurt Soup with Lentils, Barley, and Mint (the ultimate in ugly/delicious)
Two and a half years ago: Chicken Tagine with Olives and Preserved Lemons
Three and a half years ago: Coconut Black Rice Breakfast Porridge

Want more tips, tricks, and tools to make your cooking life better? Right this way…

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How to Pick and Store the Best Tomatoes

Picking A Winner; or, how to stop buying bad tomatoes

Buy tomatoes at the farmers market
The fastest route to tomato nirvana is to buy tomatoes at the farmers market instead of the grocery store.

Grocery store tomatoes taste like nothing. Why? Because to survive the trip from a farm in Florida or Mexico to a store in, say, Virginia, the tomatoes need to be exceptionally sturdy. To meet this need, breeders breed thick-skinned fruit, and growers pick the crop when the tomatoes are still green. The result is a bland, watery tomato. (Growers in Florida have also been known to rely on pesticides and modern-day slavery to produce their crop.)

Tomatoes that you find at the farmers market, on the other hand, do not have to travel far or keep for a long period of time. Farmers are thus able to grow thin-skinned, intensely flavorful varieties, and pick them when they are at their very peak.

Buying tomatoes at the farmers market also guarantees that you will only buy tomatoes when they are in season.

Pick a heavy, ripe tomato
When you’re at the market, look for a tomato that (1) feels heavy for its size, (2) has just the slightest bit of give when you squeeze it very gently, and (3) doesn’t have any nicks or cuts, which make the tomato spoil quickly (exception to this rule is if you see a vendor selling scratch-and-dent tomatoes at a reduced price, which you can use right away for gazpacho or pasta sauce).

I usually buy a few that are completely ripe and a few with less give to them, planning to let those ripen on the counter to eat later in the week.

Choose the right variety for the occasion
Heirlooms–sweet, acidic, and complex–are great for salads (especially the classic caprese). Cherry tomatoes are good for topping salads or for roasting into a compote. Plum tomatoes are useful for tomato sauce.

The only time grocery store tomatoes are kinda okay
Cherry or grape tomatoes from the grocery store can be serviceable. I buy them especially for roasting, with the knowledge that the time in the oven will deepen their flavor.

Transportation and Storage; or, making the most of those $4/pound tomatoes

How to get your tomatoes home from the market
Those big, heavy, ripe tomatoes will easily get squashed and spoiled if piled on top of each other. I often ask the farmer for a cardboard flat to carry them home in. If that’s not available, I make sure to spread them out on the very top of my market bag.

Store your tomatoes on the counter, not in the fridge
For the love of God, do not put your tomatoes in the fridge. Refrigerating tomatoes causes them to stop making one of the substances that contributes to their flavor.

Instead: take a plate. Put a paper towel on it (so if one goes off, the moldy juice won’t infect the others). Put the tomatoes on the plate stem-side down. Leave on your counter.

Exceptions: Cherry tomatoes from the grocery store aren’t as affected by refrigeration. And if you see a tomato on your counter that is about to go off, of course put it in the fridge. Just bring back up to room temp before eating.

Recipes

Bumper Crop Gazpacho (forget the watery, flavorless gazpachos of your past– this iteration is smooth, flavorful, and ice cold)
End-of-Summer Panzanella (a big party of a summer salad, bulked up with lightly-toasted bread)
Salade Niçoise, My Way or Yours + A Taste of Provence (a classic French salad with green beans, olives, tomatoes, eggs, waxy potatoes, and tuna)
Tarte à la Tomate (a French classic that takes less than 15 minutes to throw together)
Goat Cheese Toasts with Herbed Cherry Tomato Compote (crusty bread + goat cheese + tomatoes roasted until jammy)
Sweet Corn Tofu Frittata with Roasted Cherry Tomato Compote (the perfect summer weekend cooking project)
Pasta al Pomodoro (toothsome pasta in a fresh-tasting tomato sauce)
Bold Marinara Sauce + Instructions for Safe Canning (a thick, rich tomato sauce that uses a ton of tomatoes)