Gluten Free Fried Green Tomatoes Recipe With Easy Remoulade Sauce

If you love fried green tomatoes but your stomach can’t tolerate wheat or cornmeal, this gluten free fried green tomatoes recipe is going to bring joy back to your life.

At my husband’s (now closed) southern food restaurant, their fried green tomatoes were a popular menu item. He and his chef developed a yummy blend of flours that brown perfectly but don’t burn.

I love the tangy flavor of green tomatoes in a crispy fried shell, but when I realized I had to give up wheat flour and cornmeal due to a dietary intolerance we had to come up with an alternative…because giving up fried food is just not an option.

Mark’s secret to a yummy fry mix is his blend of white flour, rice flour, and cornmeal. But on my diet, wheat flour and cornmeal are no-nos. He’s been experimenting with flour blends for fried veggies for over a year now, and I think he’s done an amazing job. 

I love fried okra, fried squash, fried green tomatoes…you get the picture! I’m a born and raised Georgia girl, so fried food is basically my heritage. And there was no way I was going to give that up just because my GI tract is kind of a jerk.

But working with alternative flour blends did require a lot of trial and error. It can be difficult to find the right mix of flours that taste great and stick to the tomatoes.

We found that prepping the tomatoes with a little salt and potato flour before you dip and bread them helps a lot. The salt and potato flour helps draw out some water from the tomatoes and helps your coating to stick.

The liquid mixture can be modified according to your tastes. Normally we use buttermilk, but if you don’t have any on hand, you can use 1/3 sour cream and 2/3 regular milk or cream. You can also replace the buttermilk by adding a couple tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar into a cup of milk and let it sit a few minutes.

Picking green tomatoes

Obviously, getting the green tomatoes is no big deal if you’re growing tomatoes at home. But sometimes you’ll find them in the grocery store or farmer’s market. You can even raid your neighbors garden…with permission of course!

You can’t go wrong when picking green tomatoes. Choose baseball sized tomatoes that have not turned red yet. You can cut off and discard any blemished or imperfect areas if needed.

As tomatoes ripen they become softer. And in case you’ve never tried to cook a ripe tomato, I’ll let you know it just turns into mush. But green tomatoes have more structure and they’ll hold their shape much better for cooking.

How thick should your slices be for fried green tomatoes?

The thickness of your slice is really dependent on your taste. Anything from ⅛ to ¼ inch thick is just right to me. The thicker your slice the more firmness your tomato will retain. 

Try to slice them as evenly as possible because even slices will cook at about the same rate. We sliced ours pretty thin, but you might like them thicker. For cooking time, thicker slices will need a little more time, thinner slices a little less.

 

Gluten free fried green tomatoes recipe

Dry mixture:

• ⅛ cup potato flour (or white flour)
• ¼ cup coconut flour (or cornmeal)
• ¾ cup rice flour
• ¼ tsp salt
• ⅛ tsp pepper (to taste)
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp smoked paprika

Wet mixture:

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs

Olive oil or your favorite cooking oil for frying.

Method

• Slice your tomatoes about ¼” thick, sprinkle both sides with salt and potato flour, set aside
• Mix your dry ingredients in one bowl, set aside
• Mix your wet ingredients in a separate bowl, set aside
• Heat oil in an iron skillet over medium heat

As the oil heats up, gather your tomatoes and your wet and dry ingredients next to your hot pan. Drench each tomato in the liquid mixture coating all sides then immediately dredge it through your flour mixture coating all four sides. Repeat for all your tomato slices.

When your tomatoes are fully coated, gently lay them, one at a time, into the hot oil. It should start to sizzle immediately…if it doesn’t your pan is not hot enough.

Let them fry about 6 minutes on each side or until they’re a nice golden brown. Remove them to a plate covered with paper towel to drain some of the oil. Serve immediately.

Gluten Free Fried Green Tomato Sauce:

Traditionally, fried green tomatoes are served with a ranch dressing or a remoulade. A remoulade is a mayonnaise-based sauce, and there are tons of variations. 

When we made our sauce we mixed-tasted-added, mixed-tasted-added, until we were happy with the flavor.

For our sauce, we mixed

• ½ cup mayonnaise
• ¼ cup organic ketchup 
• 1 tbsp gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp ACV
• 1-2 tsp hot sauce – we used Tabasco 
• Dash smoked paprika and garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste

We like to garnish our fried green tomatoes with fresh peppers. In this case, we had just harvested some jalapenos and an Italian sweet pepper, and it was the perfect crunchy compliment to the warm fried tomatoes.

I could eat these GF fried green tomatoes every day!

I’m so glad my husband loves me enough to try new recipes and make perfect gluten free fried green tomatoes so I don’t have to miss out on everything that’s delicious.

Disclaimer: My need for gluten free food is not due to celiac disease. Truth be told, I haven’t seen a doctor about my gut issues. I don’t have the money to pay for a lot of testing just to be told not to eat wheat flour.

So I just keep note of what makes my stomach upset and avoid those foods. So far, fructose intolerance seems to be the closest diagnosis I can come to. And this gluten-free fried green tomato recipe takes into account my particular intolerances.

If you have celiac disease, you should always check the ingredient list of every item you cook with. There are even some types of mayonnaise and hot sauce that have gluten in them. So be careful to check every ingredient when you’re stocking your pantry with sauces and spices.

Did you love our gluten free fried green tomatoes?

If you tried our recipe, please leave me a comment with your thoughts!