How To Store Your Summer Tomatoes So They'll Stay As Fresh As Possible

Find a cool spot for them on the kitchen counter.

Come summertime, farmers' markets are buzzing with shoppers lining up to purchase their haul of peak-season tomatoes. These plump, juicy gems steal the show in summer recipes, from fresh salads to savory pies to BLTs. Not to mention, those thick slices sprinkled with nothing but salt and pepper. The selection of tomatoes seems as endless as the dishes, with colorful heirloom varieties, petite cherry tomatoes, or larger beefsteaks. Whichever you choose, storing these prized pieces of produce in the right spot can help keep them fresher for longer.

How To Store Tomatoes

To lengthen the lifespan of summer tomatoes, store them on the kitchen counter at room temperature and turn them shoulders down. Our Test Kitchen says 60 to 65° is an ideal temperature for storing and recommends placing your tomatoes out of direct sunlight. The Test Kitchen also suggests putting smaller cherry and grape tomatoes in a shallow dish so air can flow around them. Avoid storing tomatoes (unless overripe) in the refrigerator, because the colder temperatures can make them mealy, flavorless, and hard.

What To Do With Overripe Tomatoes

Usually, tomatoes are pretty ripe around the time you buy them. If a tomato is overripe, our Test Kitchen says it's ok to put it in the refrigerator to slow the ripening process, but keep it in there for only one or two days, at most. When ready to use, allow the tomato to come to room temperature, if you can, before using. If you'd like to preserve your summer bounty to use in dishes later in the year, try freezing or pickling your tomatoes.

How To Store Unripe Tomatoes

For unripe tomatoes, you can speed up the ripening process by putting them in a single layer in a paper bag and closing it loosely. Store the bag in a dry, warm spot and check on them daily for ripeness. Placing tomatoes in a bag traps the ethene gas they give off, which ripens the fruit. If you really want to speed up the process add a banana or apple to the bag, as they'll give off additional ethene and help the tomatoes ripen even faster.

How To Store Cut Tomatoes

Once cut, the no refrigerator rule no longer applies to tomatoes. It's actually quite important that cut tomatoes be stored in the refrigerator because they can harbor harmful bacteria that can make you sick. Tomatoes also spoil faster once cut, so placing them in an airtight container in the fridge can extend their shelf-life. That said, you should try to use cut tomatoes within two days of slicing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do tomatoes last longer in the refrigerator or on the counter?

Tomatoes will last longer in the refrigerator, however long term storage of tomatoes in the fridge can cause the fruit to become mealy and flavorless. If your tomatoes are already perfectly ripe, and you need a couple more days to use them up, you can keep them in the fridge with no consequences for around two days. Otherwise, keep them on the counter.

Should you store tomatoes upside-down?

Storing tomatoes upside-down might sound like a dubious food hack, but it's not. Serious Eats even conducted a series of experiments to see if storing tomatoes upside-down worked better. After storing dozens of tomatoes both stem up and down, they concluded that tomatoes stored upside-down remained plump and juicy, while the ones stored stem-up started to wrinkle. So yes, you should flip those tomatoes over and store the upside down.

Will storing tomatoes under direct sunlight help them ripen faster?

Placing tomatoes on a window sill in direct sunlight is an old-school trick for ripening the fruit, but we recommend placing the tomatoes in a paper bag at room temperature instead, as this will ripen them more effectively and faster.

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