How to save tomatillo seeds

Salsa verde is my absolute favorite, so in our endeavor to become more self-reliant for our food, I knew we’d need to find a way to can lots of tomatillo salsa. While the plants we grew our first year produced some fruit, they were bug ridden, small, and never produced a large enough crop to preserve. This year, however, we tried a different variety of tomatillo seeds from Baker Creek and were blown away by the bountiful harvests we’ve been picking week after week. This was some good seed stock, and we wanted to save some tomatillo seeds for next year’s planting! 

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Supplies

• 2-4 ripe tomatillos
• Knife
• Food processor (not 100% necessary, but helpful)  
• Clear bowl or large measuring cup
• Strainer
• Spare plate
• Paper towel

Step 1 – Harvest ripe tomatillos

How do you know a tomatillo is ripe? While tomatillos don’t change color like a tomato, it is still quite simple to know when to pick them. The tomatillo fruit forms inside a paper lantern-style husk, and when it breaks out of the protective husk, it’s ready to pick. Easy peasy! But you don’t want just any ripe tomatillos for seed saving, you want your biggest and prettiest tomatillos. Pick the ones with the best genes to have even more beautiful and flavorful fruit next year. We typically harvest a basketful of tomatillos each week and set aside the best 2-3 fruits in the basket for seed.

Step 2 – Remove husks and slice tomatillos

Remove the papery husks and slice the tomatillos into quarters. Tomatillo seeds are tough and plentiful, so no worries about cutting into the fruit. If you plan to not use a food processor, use a spoon to scoop out the seed pockets and put them into a clear bowl.

Step 3 – Pulse into a tomatillo slurry

Place the tomatillo quarters into your food processor along with some water and pulse a few times until you have a green slurry. You can do this step without a food processor, you’ll just need to smash up the fruit by hand to get the tomatillo seeds loosened from the center of the fruit. This would be a good job for the kiddos!

Step 4 – Dilute tomatillo slurry 

Pour the tomatillo slurry into a clear bowl or large measuring cup and add more water to dilute the mixture. The viable seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl, so carefully pour out the green water (we poured outside for less clean up!). You will probably need to add water and pour out several times until you have a minimal amount of tomatillo pieces left in the bowl with your seeds.

Step 5 – Strain and Dry Seeds

Pour seed water into a strainer and pick out the last few green tomatillo bits by hand. Dump the remaining seeds onto a paper towel and spread them out into a single layer to dry. Don’t forget to label the paper towel with a sharpie! I don’t know about you, but after a few weeks of seed saving I start forgetting which seed is which…Your future self will thank you!

Happy seed saving! Want to learn more about saving your own seed, click here.