This is a recipe for home-canned Green Tomato Pie filling.
It tastes halfway between mincemeat pie and apple pie.
The mixture will fill the house with wonderful smells as you are preparing it for canning.
A litre (US quart) jar will make a generous 20 cm (8 inch) pie.
You could also use this for tarts. They would make a delicious and interesting change from mincemeat tarts at Christmas. In fact, some people call this recipe “Green Tomato Mincemeat.”
People will never know there is green tomato in it until you tell them.
This recipe is from the USDA Complete Guide.
The recipe
Jar size choices: 1 litre (1 US quart / 32 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 7 x 1 litre (US quart) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 15 minutes
Green Tomato Pie Filling
Ingredients
- 4 kg green tomatoes (finely chopped. 4 US quarts / 8 lbs. Measured after prep.)
- 1.5 kg apple (chopped. Measured after peeling, coring and chopping somewhat finely. About 4 cups / 3 lbs. Measured after prep. 2 kg / 4 lbs before peeling.)
- 500 g raisins (dark, seedless. 2 ¾ cups / 1 pound)
- 500 g golden raisins (seedless. 2 ¾ cups / 1 pound)
- 4 tablespoons citrus zest (grated. see notes)
- 500 ml water (2 cups / 16 oz)
- 125 ml vinegar (5% acidity or higher. ½ cup / 4 oz)
- 250 ml lemon juice (bottled. 1 cup / 8 oz)
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon (ground)
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg (ground)
- 1 teaspoon cloves (ground)
- 1 tablespoon Kitchen Bouquet (optional, for darker colour)
- 500 g brown sugar (2 ½ cups medium packed / 18 oz)
- 500 g sugar (white. 2 ½ cups / 20 oz) )
Instructions
- Prep all ingredients.
- Put into a large pot, and stir.
- Put on stove, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and let simmer uncovered for about 40 minutes until ingredients are tender and the mixture has thickened a bit. Stir often.
- Ladle into 1 litre (1 US quart / 32 oz) jars.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe notes
- You want about about 2 kg / 4 lbs of whole apples before starting prep of the apples.
- It’s okay safety-wise if you are a bit over on the tomato or apple: they are high acid.
- You could use all one colour of raisin, if you wanted.
- The optional Kitchen Bouquet is just for a darker colour.
- For the citrus zest, you can use orange, lemon, citron, tangelo, tangerine, etc — probably just not lime, as it wouldn’t be the right flavour.
- For the vinegar, you can use white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, even white wine vinegar, as long as it’s 5% or higher — but malt vinegar would probably be too strong, and red wine vinegar might be the wrong taste and colour.
- You can reduce the amount of sugar. Or instead use the same volume amount of Splenda®. Or use 5 teaspoons of liquid stevia. We’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia .
- The reason the recipe calls for bottled lemon juice is for the safety that its guaranteed commercial acidity provides.
- You can use the pulse button on a food processor to chop up the green tomato and the apple.
- Be careful not to SCORCH the bottom. Such recipes with a lot of raisins in them are very scorch-prone in pots. If you have a heat diffuser, this is a good recipe to use it with during the prep.
This is about the size to chop the green tomato into.
Photo on right has added Kitchen Bouquet for slightly darker colouring.
Recipe Source
- Green Tomato Pie Filling. In: Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 110.
- Green Tomato Pie Filling. In: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Complete guide to home canning. Agriculture information bulletin No. 539. 2015. Page 2-39.
Modifications made:
- Option of Kitchen Bouquet for added colour; suggestion of liquid stevia as alternative non-caloric sweetener.
Pie made from a jar of home-canned green tomato pie filling
Nutrition information
Serving size: 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz / ⅛th jar). Presumes 7 pies, each cut into 8 slices, each slice having ½ cup filling in it.
Nutrition information only takes the filling into account. Crust is not included in figures below.
Regular version
Per 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz):
- 151 calories, 17 mg sodium
Sugar-free version
Per 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz):
- 84 calories, 14 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus/ProPoints®: 3 PP per slice, not counting any crust.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
Crissy
What type Apple would you recommend?
Healthy Canning
Probably any type you have would be fine. It doesn’t really need to hold its shape too much in this recipe.
Cindy
I like to use a firmer apple like an Empires or Cortlands.
Macintosh mush up and turn brown. I like the whiteness of the Cortlands and Empires (cross between Delicious and MacIntosh) and their firmness in the finished product. Love this stuff!!
Lots of greens to use up!