Air Fried Green Tomatoes With Bacon Aioli

We're taking a classic summertime treat, lightening it up by swapping out the deep fryer for the air fyer, and serving it alongside a creamy and savory bacon dipping sauce.

So, let's get to it!

Let's start with the tomatoes. Green tomatoes are just regular tomatoes that never ripened. They're nice and firm. And, they taste a little bit tart. That makes them the perfect candidate for frying, or air frying in our case today.

To prepare the tomatoes, we're going to slice them to ¼ inch thick and dress them up in a standard breading station of flour, egg, and panko. Now traditionally, fried green tomatoes are coated in cornmeal. But since we're air frying these, we're swapping out the cornmeal for panko breadcrumbs to ensure we get a nice, crispy exterior.

Once the tomatoes are breaded, we'll give them a spritz of cooking spray, and to the air fryer they go for about 10 minutes. It's important to make sure we arrange the tomatoes in a single layer in the air fryer basket so that they have plenty of opportunity for the hot air to circulate all around them. So, you'll likely have to cook these in batches. And it will be totally worth it; because when they're finished cooking, the end result is a golden, crispy, delicious medallion of goodness.

Now air fried green tomatoes are a delicious snack, as is. But, it wouldn't be right to serve them without a dipper! So, we're going to whip up a super quick bacon aioli. All we need is some mayonnaise, some crispy bacon, a little leftover bacon grease, and a sprinkle of garlic powder. Mix it all together, and our sauce is complete!

When you're ready to serve, there are plenty of options. You could serve these as is like an appetizer with a dip. You could use the tomatoes and aioli in a sammie like a mock BLT. Or, my personal favorite way to eat this is like a benedict of sorts. Toast up an english muffin, schmear on the aioli, top it with a tomato and a poached egg, then finish it with a light touch of microgreens. Talk about delish!

These tomatoes hit so many sensory notes. They're slightly soft on the insides after cooking while being super crisp and crunchy on the outside. They're a little tart and a little savory. And that bacony, garlicky dipping sauce really bumps up the volume of amazingness in this summery bite.

I may be over my current sounds of summer, but I'll never get tired of the tastes of summer when it tastes like this!

I hope you all enjoy. And, let's eat!