Once picked from the plant, a tomato rapidly loses moisture through the stem scar, turning a once juicy tomato into an increasingly dry, wrinkled shell of its former self. To slow moisture loss and help tomatoes stay plump and juicy longer, store them upside down to cover the fruit’s scar.
The tomato dilemma is real: You buy a haul of beautifully ripe summer tomatoes, carefully transport them home without a single one getting bumped and bruised, then set them out on a counter to eat over the next few days. But before you’ve managed to enjoy them all, there are signs of wrinkling and collapse. It’s the never-ending tension between two very true things: Ripe, summer tomatoes are the best tomatoes (some would say only tomatoes), and ripe summer tomatoes teeter on the precipice of a shockingly rapid decline.
What to do? Well, as controversial as it is, you can put tomatoes on the brink in the fridge: We’ve done the tests, and it is by far the preferable option to break down and decay. But there’s another thing you can do first, and it helps stave off premature tomato death, buying you time to actually enjoy these exquisite summer fruit: Store them stem-side down.
That’s because the stem end is a weak point in an otherwise well-contained little package. Tomato skins, while thin, are good at keeping juices locked inside the fruit. But the circular scar where the stem was once attached is like a wound: Once picked from the plant, a tomato rapidly loses moisture through the stem scar, turning a once juicy tomato into an increasingly dry, wrinkled shell of its former self.
By storing tomatoes upside down, the scar is blocked, which slows moisture loss and helps them stay plump and juicy longer. You can even go one step further by covering the scar with a piece of tape to lock in even more of the tomato’s water. It’s a method many chefs use, and one that former editor Kenji has shown to work: In his testing, Kenji found that tomatoes stored stem side down for three days lost just 1 to 2% of their weight, while fruit stored right side up lost up to 7%. That could be the difference between a tomato bursting with juice and one that’s shriveled up.
So the next time you come home with a basket of beautiful heirloom tomatoes from the market, do yourself a favor and take a moment to position them properly, stem side down. You won’t eliminate the great tomato dilemma, but you will reduce it.
Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez
