To Refrigerate or Not to Refrigerate

You’ve probably been told to leave your tomatoes on the counter. In theory, this is because cold kills their flavor-producing enzymes and ruins their texture by causing cells to rupture. But recently, numerous cooking blogs have challenged this thinking, so we decided to conduct our own tests.

Over two summers, we acquired heirloom and farmers’ market tomatoes that had never been refrigerated (most supermarket tomatoes are refrigerated during storage and/or transport). Once they were ripe, we halved some tomatoes and left others whole. We then refrigerated one set and left the second set at room temperature, storing them until they started to degrade. We stored the whole tomatoes loose and the cut tomatoes either in airtight containers or wrapped in plastic wrap. We then sampled the refrigerated and unrefrigerated tomatoes plain, at room temperature, and in batches of gazpacho and cooked tomato sauce.

Refrigerating Cut Tomatoes

Some tasters noted that the cut tomatoes in the plain tasting had picked up off-flavors in the refrigerator, but once the tomatoes had been cooked, tasters could not tell the difference between the samples. And while cut tomatoes didn’t last more than a day at room temperature, they held fine for up to two days in the refrigerator.

Refrigerating Whole Tomatoes

The flavor of whole tomatoes was unaffected by refrigeration. Plus, refrigerating them prolonged their shelf life by five days.

Bottom Line

Refrigerator...meet Tomato! Going forward, once our tomatoes are ripe, we’ll move both cut and whole tomatoes to the refrigerator to prolong their shelf life. To keep them from picking up off-flavors, we’ll put them in an airtight container, which works better than plastic wrap at keeping out odors.