And unless you’re eating them immediately, ripe, locally grown tomatoes will also last longer in the fridge; eat within a few days. Store ripe tomatoes in your fridge stress-free and enjoy them within a couple days of purchasing.
Let us dig in! 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.
This begs the question “Do Tomatoes need to be refrigerated after ripening?”
If you can’t use them immediately, pop them into the fridge. The colder temperatures will stop the tomatoes from ripening further , and buy you about three more days to use them up. Tip: Before eating refrigerated tomatoes, let them come up to room temperature on the counter for a day or so.
The most common answer is, the refrigerator is not the go-to storage unit for all your produce. Below are just some of the foods that do NOT belong in your fridge. Tomatoes Are Not Ideal for the Fridge If you’ve ever grown tomatoes , then you know that they love the heat and hate the cold.
You see, the tomatoes that I picked were fully ripe. I held them for two days, half in the fridge, half on the counter. I let the refrigerated tomatoes come back to room temp before tasting , then I did a blind taste test with six people. Of those six, two did simple side-by-side preference tests: They both picked the fridge tomatoes as superior.
One study we’ve read suggests that refrigerating for no longer than three days is optimal.* If your tomatoes have been refrigerated (i. e, if you got them anywhere other than your backyard or the farmers market, in season): Leave them at room temperature until fully ripe , then store them in the refrigerator until ready to use.
When I was writing we ran into the question “Can you store Tomatoes in a wine fridge?”.
One source argued that if you don’t have a wine fridge or cool cellar, store all ripe tomatoes that you can’t eat within the first day in the refrigerator. If you’re storing tomatoes in the refrigerator, it may be better to locate them on a top shelf near the door, which is often warmer than the bottom and back of the fridge.
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.
Here is what we researched. A tomato that is just fine , but not great, like the plums I bought, can benefit quite a bit from being left out at room temp.
Another common query is “Do Tomatoes need to be stored warm or cold?”.
One source stated that (The report says to store less ripe tomatoes at higher temperatures, which supports my above observation that riper tomatoes can withstand the cold , while less ripe ones benefit from some warmth.).
What to do with underripe Tomatoes after they ripen?
If you buy underripe tomatoes, leave them out at room temperature until they’re fully ripened, then move them to a cooler spot for longer storage . If you have a wine fridge or cool cellar, store all ripe tomatoes that you can’t eat within the first day there.
Do refrigerated tomatoes turn red when you cut them?
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.