When growing your own tomatoes, it seems that they take eons to ripen. However, once they do, it’s game on! It’s as if they all ripen at the same time and suddenly, you’re overwhelmed with tomatoes.
It’s a fight against time to figure out how to use them up and/or preserve them before they spoil.
In our household we make tomato soup, spaghetti sauce, salsas, BLT sandwiches, tomato sandwiches and tomato salads. We eat them sliced and salted for snacks; we roast tomatoes. Tomatoes go on or in pretty much anything and everything else we can think of.
But one of our very favorite recipes to make with the abundance is bruschetta. My daughter will gobble up a bowl with crunchy toasted baguette before I even sit down at the table.
As I was making batch number 526 of bruschetta this summer, it occurred to me that it would probably make a delicious ferment, and boy was I right. Fermented bruschetta is really easy too!
Yield: 1 pint
Ingredients
- 2 cups diced tomatoes, any variety you have (mix it up)
- 2 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Mix prepared ingredients together and transfer to a clean pint canning jar. If you have a small fermentation jar weight, add it to the jar to hold down the produce under the juices.
Wipe off the rim of the jar with a clean dampened towel. Add the canning jar lid and tightly screw on the ring.
Read more: Save seeds from your garden tomatoes! This video shows you how.
Fermentation
This is a very short ferment, with the duration being between 24 to 48+ hours. The bruschetta is delicious after it’s mixed together. But as it ferments, the flavors grow and meld together.
Ferment at room temperature, ideally between 60 to 75 degrees F (15 to 23 degrees C) and keep out of direct sunlight.
Taste test after 24 hours to determine if the fresh flavors have transformed enough to your liking. If not, let it go another day or day and a half and taste test again. Once fermentation is complete, transfer the jar to the refrigerator.
This ferment is best enjoyed within 2 weeks.
Side Notes
Enjoy this fermented bruschetta as you would any regular unfermented bruschetta. Spread on a grilled crunchy baguette, mix into pasta or pile over a protein.
Consider stirring in parmesan cheese, balsamic vinaigrette or a little red wine vinegar before serving.
