Intro
Lite: Cut a tomato in half, then cut it again. Do this twice, or 6 times, or however many you like. Each time you do it, you have a shiny and beautiful seedless tomato!
How much fun is that? If you’re having trouble with the cut-and-gut technique, watch this video by Chef Tom Colicchio on youtube (it’s great).
The cut-and-gut technique is useful to me because it forces me to think about what I’m doing and to visualize how I can improve it. It doesn’t matter that I can’t do everything myself – I still do a lot of work for myself and my team. But when I look at how much improvement I can make by using other people’s ideas and building around them, even though they aren’t exactly what I would want, then there is an added pleasure in knowing that other people are making progress on something which is really important to me. To paraphrase: “I don’t just sell software anymore; now I’m selling tacos!”
The cut and gut technique is simple
I have had a few requests for this post. I think it is a great technique for making salad, and I have seen so many people use it. It’s an old technique that originated in Mexico — think about using a knife to cut off little pieces from a tomato.
You can do this with any ingredient you want if you understand how to cut it. You can also add different ingredients to see what works best for you. For example, if you are making tacos, you could try adding beans or avocado scraps to the mix. To make the tacos more casual, but still very tasty, you could add some cheese and your favorite salsa to the mixture as well.
A couple of quick tips:
• If your tomatoes are on the small side, I recommend cutting them into quarters before slicing them (this will remove more of their heart).
• Don’t use very large tomatoes; they don’t hold together as well as smaller ones (and they will be sadder).
• If you like dressing on top of your salad, use olive oil instead of water; fresh lime juice will help keep the dressing fresh longer than bottled dressing does.
You will never have a cut or gut when you use this technique
In this post, I’ll walk you through the steps of how to use the cut and gut technique to get seedless tomato deliciousness in your salads.
This is one of those techniques that has been around forever, but it often doesn’t get used. So if you want to get really good at this technique, be sure to read this post by Erika Soto-Stark: How to Cut a Tomato for Tacos.
The basic idea is to slice tomatoes in half horizontally and vertically. Then, you can slice them into 1/4″ slices or larger. To do this with large tomatoes, I typically use a large serrated knife or chef’s knife (this will also work with gloves on). You can also use a long serrated knife or a very sharp kitchen spoon.
You are going to slice the tomato in one direction — across — while holding the knife perpendicular to the cutting surface (i.e., perpendicular to your wrist). Then you are going to “gut” the tomato by rotating it 90 degrees away from you (while holding the knife) and slicing it again in that new direction. And then you are going to continue doing all that same thing again and again for as many times as needed until your tomatoes are all sliced into nice neat little slices (and will hopefully still be pretty juicy!).
Here is a video of how I do it: How To Cut A Tomato For Tacos
The most important thing here is not even cutting at all! The next step is cutting off any remaining pieces of skin so that your slices are nice and clean! Make sure you keep your cuts relatively straight until they are finished — otherwise there can be some give back in between each cut!
Easy steps to follow for guaranteed success
Tomato is one of the most delicious, versatile, and plentiful fruits in the world. It’s also a great way to use up leftovers and create a quick meal.
This technique can be applied to any kind of food, but it’s especially useful for salads.
For more information on how to cook and eat tomatoes safely, check out the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website here: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant-health/tomatoes/.
Conclusion
By now you have probably realized that tacos are an excellent way to use up tomatos. But, as I’m sure you have also discovered, there is a lot more to a taco than just getting the right ingredients. In this post I will talk about some of the other things to consider when making tacos, including:
• How to cut a tomato for tacos
• Using up the remaining tomatoes in your fridge
There are other things we can do with leftover tomatos. For example, in this post we’ll look at how to store them left over from making salsa, and how to use them for recipes like quesadillas and enchiladas. We’ll also talk about how easy it is to freeze leftover tomatos, so that you can keep them around year-round — without having multiple batches of tomatoes in your fridge!