When shopping for tomatoes, make sure you choose the best ones.
Tomatoes don't just lend color and flavor to your favorite cooked or raw entrees or appetizers. They also have a healthy dose of fiber and vitamins, including the antioxidant vitamin C. For the best taste, choose the perfectly ripe tomato. The strategy for selecting the best ripened tomato varies depending on whether you're shopping for tomatoes in your grocery store, or picking tomatoes in your backyard garden.
Instructions
Grocery Store Tomatoes
1. Pick the tomato up and roll it around in your hand. Look for soft spots, bruises or signs of mold growth. If you see any of these signs of damage, put the tomato back on the grocery store shelf.
2. Review the color. The tomato should have an even, "intense" red color, reports "Bon Appetit" magazine. Avoid pale, green or splotchy-colored tomatoes.
3. Squeeze the tomato slightly with the tip of your fingers. The surface of the tomato should give way slightly to this pressure. If it feels hard -- or the opposite, and quickly squishes inward -- put the tomato back.
Garden Tomatoes
4. Watch the tomato fruit and monitor its development from green to red. It will begin to develop its color from the bottom up.
5. Harvest the tomatoes once its developed 80 percent of its ripened color. At this stage, they have developed their optimal flavor in terms of a balance between acidity and sweetness. The only exception: cherry tomatoes, which taste best when they're picked at approximately 95 percent of their fully ripened color.
6. Place the tomato in a paper bag until it's fully ripe, having an even red color and possessing a slight "give" when pressed with your thumb.
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