Vegetable Gardening: The Perfect Time: When Is It Good To Pick Tomatillos?

Tomatillos are not just green tomatoes! They are a unique vegetable with a sweet taste that is not at all unlike its cousin, the tomato. They may not be popular in home gardens, but those of us who grow them have learned that they are very productive and deserve a place in our garden.

Although tomatillos fall into the easy-to-grow category, knowing when a tomatillo is ready to pick can be very difficult.

How Do You Know When a Tomatillo is Ripe?

Even a skilled gardener can feel a little confused when it comes to harvesting tomatillos. I’ve missed the harvest window myself in the past because I didn’t know how to tell when a tomatillo was ready to pick.

When you grow tomatillos you will notice that the fruit is surrounded by a papery husk. When the fruit is still developing, the husk is much larger than the fruit. When you squeeze the husk there is a large space between it and the tomatillo.

As the tomatillo grows larger it eventually completely fills the void and explodes even less.

This is the signal that the tomatillo is ready to pick!

In my garden, when I’m in harvest mode, I scan the plant for fruit that looks like it’s full of husks. If I can’t tell by sight, I squeeze the tomatillo, if there is space between the fruit and the husk I don’t pick it.

Easy peasy!

I have one caveat about harvesting tomatillos. If you leave them too long on the plant beyond their prime harvest time they develop what I think is a very unpleasant soapy taste.

The way to tell if a tomatillo is overripe is that the fruit is more yellow than green and the skin has started to turn brown and dry. When I see a tomatillo like this in my garden I don’t harvest it.

My husband doesn’t think overripe tomatillos taste any different than fully ripe, so you might want to come to your own conclusion with a taste test!

If it’s the heat of summer and your plant doesn’t have much fruit, you may have encountered a very important problem: are tomatillos puffy? (Hint: you need more than one plant!)

How to Store Tomatillos

Now that you know when a tomatillo is ready to pick, let’s talk about what to do with it after harvest.

If you are not going to use them right away, you can store them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for up to a week.

When you want to start cooking, remove the husks because they are inedible. I put them all in my compost.

At this point you will discover something strange about tomatillos – they stick. I don’t know why this is, but as you start to remove the husks with your hands you will notice that they start to stick. I just wash my hands under the tap as I work.

I also like to find small insects and frass (insect poop) under the husks, so I throw the tomatillos into a bowl of water or a colander and wipe them off.

Now you are ready to cook with your tomatillos!

So, what should you do with them? My favorite way to use tomatillos, and in fact, the only way I eat them, is to make salsa verde, or green salsa.

Read on to find out more.

Chilled Tomatillos

If you have more tomatillos than you can use or like the idea of ​​saving some of them for the winter, you have several options for freezing tomatillos.

Make Salsa Verde
I freeze about 80% of the tomatillos I grow and eat about 20% fresh. 100% of them are made with fried salsa verde. I’ve been using this Homemade Salsa Verde recipe from Cookie and Kate for years and can attest to the fact that it makes a great salsa verde.

You can also make fresh salsa verde (without roasting it) and freeze it.

I freeze my salsa verde in quart freezer bags. I stack them and put them in the fridge in my chest to freeze them thin to save space. I also used small square containers like these.

Although I freeze some sauces like garlic scape pesto and cilantro sauce in wide-mouth mason jars, I’m a bit nervous about freezing salsa verde in these because it’s so watery. I have cracked glass jars in the chest freezer, even though they are supposed to be freezer safe.

Freeze green tomatillos
If you don’t have time to make salsa verde or like to use your tomatillos in another way (How?! I’d love to know!) you can freeze them whole. Remove the husks and rinse them in the sink. It’s best if fruits and vegetables go into the fridge as dry as possible, so sometimes I’ll put them on a dish towel on the counter to dry a little.

After that, you can load them into gallon freezer bags and put them in your freezer. I have never tried making fried tomatillo salsa with frozen tomatillos. I’m not sure if it will work because the consistency of tomatillo is very different after it’s frozen. I think you’d have better luck making a fresh salsa with these. Frozen tomatillos will keep for up to a year.

Freeze the fried tomatillos
If you like the idea of ​​making grilled salsa verde but don’t have time to make the entire recipe, you can grill tomatillos and freeze them. Follow the roasting directions in Cookie and Kate’s recipe, let the tomatillos cool, and load them into gallon freezer bags.

Lay the bags flat and stack them on top of each other when you put them in the freezer and they’ll freeze in a space-saving way.

You can freeze them on a cold winter day and finish making salsa verde for Taco Tuesday!

Why can’t you make salsa?
You might wonder why I don’t know salsa verde after making it. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of canning. I think it’s too much work. I do what I call very simple food storage. I focus on preserving food in the quickest and most useful way possible. I mostly store my harvests in the winter and eat them fresh in the basement, in the refrigerator, or in my chest freezer.

I even wrote a whole book about it: Super Easy Food Preserving.

Tomatillos may not be as versatile as tomatoes, but I like to grow a few plants in my garden each season to give us enough fruit to make salsa verde all summer and freeze a few bags for the winter.

Now that you’ve learned when a tomatillo is ready to pick, you’re ready to get out there and harvest and hopefully make some salsa verde for this week’s taco night!

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