Ripening tomatoes | Imamother

Amarante

Wed, Sep 06 2023, 10:30 am

If you keep fruit in the plastic, it will get moldy and go bad rather than ripen because the moisture doesn't evaporate.

Any produce you want to ripen at home should be in a paper bag because it is breathable and so the excess moisture evaporates. The produce will ripen most of the time without rotting although in my experience sometimes I buy a batch of peaches which never ripen successfully.

If you want to speed up the process put a banana or apple in the bag because they emit a gas which causes speedier ripening. Of course for the same reason you should NOT store ripe fruit close to apples or bananas because they will start rotting quickly.

Also tomatoes should NEVER be refrigerated because it destroys the flavor. Keep on the counter at room temperature

Amarante

Wed, Sep 06 2023, 11:05 am

amother OP wrote:

thanks all of you for the wonderful advice I never knew!

if I dont have a paper bag will it ripen just by sitting on the counter or by the window where there is sun?

In my experience, it depends.

With some stone fruit like peaches and nectarines, they never seem to ripen satisfactorily just on the counter as they go from firm and not sweet to mushy but that might just because it is a batch that would never ripen well anyway. Other times they ripen beautifully just on the counter although I do try to avoid bowls as I find that sometimes when fruit touches and I am a bit lazy about checking, the parts where they touch become over ripe and start rotting a bit. But that of course is because I get neglectful

You can keep on the counter but I wouldn't put them in the sun because the heat from the sun could cause issues.

You can buy a package of smallish brown paper lunch bags for cheap and they last a very long time. Also don't forget that you can reuse the paper bags so long as they haven't gotten wet inside so you probably can figure out a way to get a few paper bags for free.