If your tomatoes are on the edge of becoming overripe and you don’t want to lose them, Lofts says you can keep them in the refrigerator for a few days to halt the ripening process . At that point, however, you should only use the tomatoes to cook with rather than eating them raw as they will have already lost too much flavor and texture.
Lets dig a little deeper! as Serious Eats explains, most commercial grocery stores chill or refrigerate tomatoes, keeping them in colder-than-ideal temps to preserve them and stave off spoiling. If your tomatoes have already been refrigerated, you still can store them at room temperature . They don’t have to go in the fridge.
Do Tomatoes need to be refrigerated?
Because tomatoes are very sensitive, the temperature at which they’re stored is important. That’s why the most common answer to the question “ should tomatoes be refrigerated? ” is no. Here’s why: Based on the above temperature guidelines, refrigerators are too cold for tomatoes, and countertops too warm.
I put half of each type of tomato in the refrigerator and the other half out on the counter. The next day, I took the refrigerated ones out and let them come back up to room temperature .
The study stated that the ripe tomatoes, after they are picked, undergo a commercial post-harvest process ; then they stored in refrigerator or room temperature. Hence, as per the researchers, one should store tomatoes for lesser period of time to enjoy its flavours to the fullest.
One way to think about this is even before cutting into the tomatoes, I could see some differences. The standard tomatoes, for instance, had turned redder on the counter than they had in the fridge, though the difference was subtle. Note the yellow flecks on the skin of the refrigerator tomato on the right, compared with the redder skin of the countertop tomato on the left.
Do Tomatoes rot faster at room temperature or in the fridge?
Great, you might be thinking. You just showed that tomatoes rot faster at room temperature than in the refrigerator. Big whoop But that’s exactly the point: If you’re buying your tomatoes ripe (which we should all be doing!) and need to store them for an extra day or two, you’re often better off storing them in the fridge than on the countertop.
This of course begs the question “What is the best refrigerator temperature for Tomatoes?”
Some think that 1 40˚F or below is the recommended temperature for a refrigerator, according to the FDA 2 55˚F is the ideal storage temperature for tomatoes 3 68-72˚F is considered room temperature, which can easily fluctuate depending on weather.
What’s the best way to store Tomatoes?
As I’ve written above, all of the academic studies I found on tomato storage were based on a narrow set of conditions: namely, tomatoes picked when underripe, and stored in temperatures below 70°F .
A frequent inquiry we ran across in our research was “What is the best way to store Tomatoes after picking?”.
Here is what my research found. Ripe: It’s best to use ripe tomatoes straight away , but if you need to store them, keep them at room temperature and out of the sunlight. Store stem side up and spread out so they’re not touching one another.
Does the way tomatoes are stored affect their flavor?
There are two main options available to consumers: Storage in the refrigerator or at room temperature. A research team from the University of Göttingen has now investigated whether there are differences in the flavor of ripe tomatoes depending on how they are stored and taking into account the chain of harvesting from farm to fork.
Some authors claimed the researchers have investigated the influence of two types of storage options (refrigerator and room temperature) on the flavours of ripe tomatoes. There’s no doubt that tomato is one of the most commonly available food items you can find in any kitchen.