Southern Fried Green Tomatoes with Arugula and Roasted Red Pepper Aioli

Happy Friday y’all! One our blogging goals for the year was to branch out into other areas besides just fashion and shopping. We are moms and wives after all, which means we do a lot of cooking! You can view our other recipes here and here! Cooking is one of my favorite jobs. I love winding down the day in the kitchen with a glass of wine and good music playing. It’s even better when the kiddos and hubby love the outcome.

I have some pretty deep southern roots, so recipes such as fried green tomatoes, fried okra, chicken and dumplings and greens are all things I love to make. They are delicious, but all that frying and fat can leave us with an undesirable waist line, so for one of my favorite southern recipes, I thought I would lighten it up and create a salad version. Arugula is one of my favorite salad greens, so I knew it would be a perfect match with the salty tomatoes!

This is a recipe I created a couple of years ago, and of course there is a secret ingredient that I am letting you all in on. For the corn meal, I use a box of Jiffy Corn Bread Mix! I wanted to make Fried green tomatoes when a friend brought some fresh green tomatoes to my house. I didn’t have any corn meal, but I did have a box of this cornbread mix, so I thought, “What the hey?” the boxes cost all of like 50 cents so I used it to bread the tomatoes and it was a huge success!

Southern Fried Green Tomatoes with Arugula and Roasted Red Pepper Aioli

Ingredients:

2 green tomatoes

1 tbs. salt

1/2 tbs fresh cracked pepper

sugar

1 pkg. Jiffy Corn Bread Mix

1 cup cornstarch

1Tbs. Paprika

2 eggs

Vegetable oil

For the tomatoes:

Slice the tomatoes into 1/4″ slices. Sprinkle with sugar and allow to drain on paper towels. While tomatoes drain, in a bowl, whisk together the package of Jiffy Corn Bread mix, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and paprika. In a separate shallow dish, whisk the 2 eggs. Fill a skillet with 2″ of vegetable oil. Enough to fry the tomatoes, and let the oil heat up. You’ll know its ready when a few drops of water “pop” when added to the oil. Dredge the tomatoes in the egg wash, and then in the corn meal mix and add to the fryer. Fry each side for about 3 minutes until golden brown. Remove from grease, drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Place tomatoes on a bed of Arugula and garnish with crumbled goat milk and roasted red pepper aioli.

Roasted Red Pepper Aioli:

1 (7 oz.) jar roasted red bell peppers, drained

1/2 cup fat free mayonnaise

1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

3 garlic cloves

1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. This is also delicious on crab cakes (coming soon)!

This recipe serves 4, but it also looks amazing on a platter as an appetizer. Enjoy with a glass of white wine and good friends!

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Have an amazing weekend!