Tomatoes, tomatoes everywhere. The tomato plants are heavily laden with tomatoes–many still green.
When I wake up in the mornings I’m starting to feel a slight chill in the air. It won’t be long until there is frost. It’s time to make Green Tomato Mincemeat.
This traditional “mock” mincemeat has been made by frugal cooks for countless years. And, no wonder–it tastes as good, if not better, than real mincemeat and make the perfect mincemeat pie.
For my husband and me, Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie is an Autumn comfort food. We remember our mothers’ and grandmothers’ (and the church ladies) making this scrumptious pleasantly sweet, yet tart, traditional pie with its tangy blend of spices.
Green Tomato Mincemeat
6 cups green tomatoes
2 cups tart apples
1 cup raisins
2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup strong coffee
1 lemon (grated peel and juice)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Core and quarter tomatoes and apples; put through food processor or chopper. Combine all ingredients in large saucepan. Simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally. May be canned or frozen.
Amount: This recipe makes enough mincemeat for 2 9-inch pies.
Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie
1 quart (approx. 4 cups) green tomato mincemeat
1/4 cup flour
9-inch double-crust pie shell
milk (optional)
sugar (optional)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stir the flour into the mincemeat; place in pastry-lined pie pan. Cover with top crust. Seal and crimp. Cut slits in top crust (or poke top crust several times with a fork). If desired, brush with a small amount of milk; sprinkle with sugar. Bake in oven for 10 minutes; then reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake an additional 20 to 30 minutes or until crust is browned and juice just begins to bubble through slits in crust.
A Hundred Years Ago 
This is very interesting! We always call Mincemeat pie is really Raisin Pie in our NEPA town.
Interesting. . . . There are a lot of different ways to make mincemeat; though I think that that raisins are generally one of the ingredients. It sounds like they are the main ingredient in the area where you live.
Yum! Sounds delish Sheryl! ❤
Diana xo
It is good.
This sounds wonderful. For years, I bought canned mincement from the Vermont Country Store, since it was only a Christmas treat, and I was the only one who liked it. It wasn’t a true “meat” mince, but something very much like this. I never spent any time trying to run down a recipe, but now that they aren’t carrying the product any more, I believe I’ll give this a try. I’m not so fond of what comes in the small, square boxes that has to be rehydrated. This sounds much better!
I think that you’d like it. It has a really nice flavor.
Mincemeat is not something I grew up eating and always wondered what it was. Now I know. May have to try this for H Sheryl. ~Elle
There are a lot of different recipes for mincemeat. The very traditional ones actually contain meat–but today many mincemeat recipes don’t call for any meat. Some have apples, raisins, and spices; and, of course green tomato mincemeat also contains tomatoes.
I usually make a simple green tomato pie, with very few other ingredients, but this is such a wonderful recipe, I’ll give it a try next time! 🙂
If you like green tomato pie, I think that you’ll love this recipe. I’ve made green tomato pie occasionally using just the tomatoes, cinnamon, flour, and sugar. It’s nice, but I like this one better.
Yes, what you describe is the kind of pie I’m used to making, but this version does sound better. I’ll give it a try next time.
I’ve never tasted mincemeat, and have just become a fan of fried green tomatoes (although I grew up in the South!). This dish sounds very “autumnal”!
I’ve noticed that in recent years to even farmers’ markets sell green tomatoes. I think that they are becoming more popular.
Sounds so much better than the Christmas traditional pie!
It is delicious!
I have always made mincemeat cookies and mincement pies from box mincemeat (Non Such?) that had to be rehydrated but that is harder and harder to find. Might have to try this.
I think that you’d like this recipe. I find it soooo frustrating when stores discontinue an item that I regularly purchase.
Oh I can believe this is good!! And the picture of the piece of pie makes my mouth water…
It’s nice to hear that you liked the photo. I’ve been practicing my photo-taking skills, but my pictures still sometimes seem a bit hit or miss.
This looks really interesting. I find that I crave more vinegary foods as I get older, and this is one I definitely will try!
hmmm. . .I never thought about it, but I may like vinegary food more now than when I was younger. Like many who grew up in central Pennsylvania, I’ve always eaten a lot of sweet-sour foods. When I was a kid, it was just what my family ate–now I choose to make it
I’ve never tasted a mincemeat pie. I even thought it was a meat, real meat pie. You have opened two new pie avenues. I’ll taste mincemeat and I’ll learn to make a pie crust. I know if I can get crust making down, the sky is the limit on how many pies I can make. I found out that cakes are out and pies are IN!!
Oh dear, I was planning to make a cake when I have friends over the next time. It’s good to know that they are out of style. 🙂 Then again, I may just make it anyway, since I’m not one to follow fads.
It’s a little confusing but real mincemeat is actually made out of meat; however, “mock mincemeats” have been popular for a very long time and many mincemeat recipes do not call for meat.
A friend gave me some of her home made green tomato mincemeat. I have used it in an apple cobbler type dessert. It’s delicious stuff, and your pie looks superb.
What I good idea! I never thought about using mincemeat in a cobbler-type dessert. I’ll have to try it the next time I make green tomato mincemeat.
I have never made mincemeat pie but this looks like it would be worth a try!
I think that you’d like it. It is a nice autumn dessert.
Do you peel the apples?
I’ve made this recipe both ways, and both are good–though I think that I have a slight preference for peeled apples.
A request: I can not find what the shelf life of home canned Green tomato Mincemeat is. Can you help me? My recipe was sealed in sterilized jars. I believe Hot Water Bath. Even in pressure cooker I still would like to find SOME ONE who can tell me the shelf life. Yjamk you ,
Charlene Bremer
According to the Utah State University Extension website page on Food Storage: Canned Goods, “As a general rule, unopened home canned foods have a shelf life of one year and should be used before two years.”
I was wondering if mincemeat was on your blog, and of course it is.
I really like mincemeat, but I haven’t regularly had it since I was a small child, as once my father’s mother died, the source of it, well, likewise died.
She loved backing sweets, and indeed in a sort of way that’s what her death was attributed to, although whether that really contributed to it or not is more than a bit vague. Basically, she died of either a colon or a gall bladder ailment, and my father, who died at 62, likewise did, although much less directly. This was before colonoscopies were common. I recall my father telling me as he was in the hospital that he was acquiring all of his mother’s ailments, which has been on my mind recently as I had to have colon surgery, which went well, but which had a nick of time aspect to it. But for that, like my grandmother and my father, I’d likely have been dead of an intestinal matter in my early 60s.
But I digress.
She made mincemeat pie and I really liked it, but I seem to have been the only one. Indeed, while her other confections were really liked, including some I don’t like, her pie wasn’t and people felt that her piecrust wasn’t very good, although that’s not how I felt about it.
Anyhow, I’m tempted to try some mincemeat pies here in the near future.