Name: Fresh Green Tomato-Chili Pepper Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 35 min
Ingredients: 7-8 pounds green tomatoes; 1 pound green chili peppers

Stuck with green, unripe tomatoes at the end of the growing season? Turn them into a sauce base with this recipe.

Do you have a home garden? If you’re like me, you grow a nice variety of tomatoes. We grow chili peppers of all kinds, but there is nothing like walking out to a garden full of fresh tomatoes.

We grew four different varieties this year but at the end of the season, we are always left with a number of tomatoes that just didn’t ripen. And for some reason, this year was worse than normal.

We wound up with several pounds of green tomatoes still sitting on the plants and the freeze was upon us. Once the freeze hits, forget about saving those tomatoes. Which leads us to the big question…

What Can I Do With All of My Fresh Green Tomatoes?

The best way to use up a lot of fresh green tomatoes is to make a sauce out of them. This sauce is not so much a sauce that you’ll pour over everything, but more of a sauce or a soup base that you can freeze and incorporate into any number of recipes. Use it as a starter for your next green table sauce, a salsa verde, a base for chili, maybe even a stew. I’ve even squeezed in some lime juice and used it as a simple topping for fish and it works great.

How to Make This Green Tomato Sauce – The Recipe Method

First, thoroughly clean the tomatoes and peppers. I used 7 pounds of green tomatoes and 1 pound of fresh green chili peppers for this recipe.
Next, coarsely chop the tomatoes and peppers and set them into a pressure cooker or a large pot.
Pressure cook for 30 minutes at high pressure. Allow to cool. If using a large pot, cook the tomatoes and peppers down for 1 hour or longer, or until the ingredients break down and release their liquids.
Process the tomato-pepper mixture with a food processor or stick blender.
Freeze in containers.

Recipe Tips & Notes

Pressure Cooker Saves Time. We used our pressure cooker for this, but if you don’t have one, cook them over the stove on medium heat. Let them simmer for about an hour or longer until everything is nice and soft. Then process as needed.
Fresh Tomatoes. I do this with fresh tomatoes as well. I have a ton for the winter! Honestly, I think Patty and I are going to need to get ourselves a second freezer in the house for all of the preserving going on.
Chili Peppers. We used sweeter green peppers here to keep the resulting sauce more on the mild side. You can always spice it up later if you’d like, but this works well with just about any chili pepper you want to preserve. I mostly wanted a nice green color and that is what we achieved.

If you enjoy this recipe, I hope you’ll leave a comment with some STARS. Also, please share it on social media. Don’t forget to tag us at #ChiliPepperMadness. I’ll be sure to share! Thanks! — Mike H.

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