ripening tomatoes

Tomatoes will ripen best in a dark, warm place. Actually putting them on a window ledge, as some people advise causes them to turn red on the outside, makign them LOOK ripe, but the haven't ripened on the inside. Most would suggest putting them either in a paper bag, or a small covered cardboard box, in a single layer only! (that is important, otherwise you are prone to get un-evenly ripened tomatoes and the possibility for bruising and molding) The warmer they are kept, the faster they will ripen, so if you want to mak you tomato crop last longer, you can keep some in a nice warm place, to use soon, and others in a cooler place, where they can ripen slower and be used later.

I think the best way to ripen your tomatoes (are they home-grown or store bought?) is just to leave them out where the sun can reach them. If they're in a dark place then sunlight can't really get to them, and they won't ripen. It works pretty well, but make sure you remember to get them back, because I once left out a batch of tomatoes and some were overripe when I finally remembered about them and came back to check them a week later.

I had heard about wrapping them in newspaper to ripen when it's the end of the season, it don't work by the way, but never heard about the paper bag. We always put ours by a window that gets the sun to finish ripening and that works pretty well.

well, tomatoes take a bit longer than bananas to ripen, my mom always set them on her kitchen window sill (but it wasn't sunny so it wasn't like in the sun) to ripen, I don't think the paper bag will work any better - hummm, I honestly have never seen a totally green tomato ripen, had to be on the way to being ripe first

I have always heard that you put your tomato on the windowsill to finish ripening but according to one of your posters this does not work. I know a lot of fruits and vegetables ripen with ethylene gas which coincidentally is also produced by ripening fruit, that is why when you get a bunch of fruit together they will ripen faster. Producers of food use this to their advantage when they pick the fruit not ripened then ship it and ripen it in a warehouse with ethylene gas. I think the paper bag method would work best if you put a ripe banana in with it so that it gives off ethylene gas. I believe there are ways of preparing green tomatoes like frying or making a chutney.

I have never used a paper bag i just leave them in the window so the sun can get to them. I have used paper bags for bananas and it works good.

Hi Snowy;I have heard that you can ripen tomatoes in a paper bag, but I never tried it. I usually either ripen my tomatoes on the window sill, rotating them to turn the juices and to ripen all sides, or I take the green tomato, slice it thin, dip it in stirred egg then dredge it in seasoned flower, fry it in garlic and olive oil. MMMMM! Of I have a lot of green tomatoes I will slice them thin to make green tomato pie, very similar recipe as apple pie.MMMM!