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Best uses for Juliet Tomatoes

10 years ago

So, I find myself with 50 pounds of Juliet tomatoes. I have read that they aren't the best fresh eating tomato because they have such tough skins. If they are best used for cooking, what would bring out the best of this tomato? Roasting? Sauce? Paste? Does anyone have suggestions for the best way to use this little beauty? I'd like to preserve them in some way if possible.

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Comments (7)

berrybusy
10 years ago
We like them for fresh eating. Those little round slices are so cute! So, decide for yourself if they are too tough for you. I found they dehydrated nicely also. Really, any thing you can do with a tomato is fair game. The other night we had a campfire near the garden and I grabbed a few off the vine and toasted them like a marshmallow. Nice smokey flavor.

P.S. Heeellllp I'm drowning in tomatoes... ;-)
digdirt2
10 years ago
Best use I have found is slice in half vertically and dehydrating them. It intensifys what flavor they have.

You can make sauce out of them if you have a tomato mill to get the skins out. Otherwise it is a very chewy sauce with not much flavor.

No paste instructions available - too dense. But roasting will help with the flavor if you decide to go with making sauce.

Dave
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Thanks Dave. I know the Glaciers are done for - I've been throwing away more lately than harvesting (I said I had about 1-2 lbs perfect, and a few more with just some black specks). I think over the course of the season now I've thrown away more than I've harvested. Glad to know that the black specks are considered diseased and not good for canning (though we will eat the remaining ones on the counter fresh as long as they'll last). I wasn't sure about the "dead vines" line since when I picked them last week the branches they were on were not dead. So the "dead vines" means that if any part of the plant dies an untimely death, don't use *any* of the tomatoes for canning? What about the cracking BW? Still OK to eat the bottoms (not canned)? I don't know what that rot is on the small one I found yesterday - first time I've seen that. Won't be many green tomatoes, except for BW's. I understand these will be OK to slice and pickle? All these plants are going in the trash, not the compost. I also should have been carrying a bucket to put the rejects in instead of throwing them over the fence - going to have to clean up the area. But I have been putting the split ones and the ones that started getting sunken rotten spots on my counter (even though they looked fine when I picked them) in the compost - have I just ruined next year's compost? The last time I canned anything from these plants was some hot sauce on 9/4 (and the only other thing was jam on 8/27, haven't canned anything else), and the plants looked much better then having survived the hurricane with just some minor damage, though might have been some spots (I thought Septoria) on some of the leaves at that time, no spots on the tomatoes, is that sauce likely to be OK? Will I be able to tell if it's going bad? Or is there potential for botulism due to the tomatoes being less acidic than usual b/c plants were already infected? I think they started going downhill after the hurricane 8/27 with 10+ inches of rain and then the 5 inches that followed on the 5th-8th of Sept so I can't really remember exactly how the plants looked before the 4th (I was using tomatoes picked in between those 2 rain events). Your expertise is very much appreciated.
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Juliet tomatoes are great to freeze. I just used my last batch and I will tell you that it is a wonderful feeling to take a few from the freezer, in the dead of winter, to make a delicious sauce or add to soup or whathaveyou. I think a lot of gardeners try to grow Juliet in a container which doesn't work since the plant is huge and does not stop growing and producing-for me-until the first frost. The tomatoes do not need to be pre-frozen on a cookie sheet before bagging since they do not freeze together in a clump like other tomatoes that need to be cut before freezing and they do not need to have their skins removed before freezing... a few minutes in room temperature water loosens the skin.... Great tomato to grow.... I see my comment from last year above and was my first year growing Juliet, now I will always grow it and looking forward to the harvest this season. Maybe not the most flavorful tomato but certainly not bad, tastes better then store bought, in fact MUCH better.
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Christen17
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks Folks!
Roasting them sounds delicious.
Seasyde
10 years ago
Last year was my first year growing them and I was overrun with them. Unfortunately the flavor was meh. A took a tip I found here on the forum and started freezing them in zip lock bags as they ripened. After the season was over I made sauce, which turned out a whole lot better than I expected from those tomatoes.

I tried them again this year, as the people who had recommended these in the first place insisted I'd just had a bad year. They were right - the flavor is better this year, but of course the yield is way down. (As it is with all my tomatoes this year). I'm freezing them again, but don't expect a large batch of sauce. I doubt I'll be planting them again next year - I just dont have the space for tomatoes I don't love.
HU-706185850
3 years ago
Can you peel them like canning tomatoes then cook down for sauce?
HU-422368488
3 years ago
Yes

HU
HU-367599376
last year
I harvest about 300 pounds of Juliet tomatoes every year from only 6-7 plants. After eating all we can possibly eat fresh (out of hand, in salads, salsa, bruschetta, roasted, etc.) I freeze them whole by the bagful. Then when I'm ready to make sauce, I'll pull out a few bags, let them partially thaw, and they pop right out of their skins with a simple pinch. I cook them down with my garden garlic, onions, and basil, some olive oil and salt, until I have a thick, rich sauce. I squeeze the skins to get out the last bit of juice and add that to the sauce for extra flavor. I love Juliets so much that it's almost the only tomato I grow now. I add a couple of beefsteak-type tomatoes to the garden for sandwiches, but the Juliets win the prize!

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