Tomato Recipe Contest

Show your love for eating tomatoes in the Tomato Recipe Contest!

Tomato Your Way: The Ultimate Flavor Masterpiece 🍅🎨

No recipe constraints. No pretension. Just your favorite tomato-forward masterpiece, exactly how you canvas it.

Let’s be honest: East Nashville doesn’t really do "paint-by-numbers." We like our art bold, our porch music loud, and our summer tomatoes treated with absolute reverence. That’s why for this year’s recipe contest, we’re handing over the culinary palette to you. No abstract, avant-garde requirements. No gatekeeping. Just pure, unadulterated, tomato-forward expression.

Welcome to “Tomato Your Way”!

This year is a celebration of the tomato as the ultimate edible medium. Whether you possess a legendary family recipe guarded like a fine art heist or a 5-ingredient quick-fix that makes you the MVP of the neighborhood block party, we want it on the judging table. If the tomato is the undisputed star of the plate, it’s a masterpiece in our book.

Need to spark your creative genius? You can submit any medium you prefer, including:

🍅 The Deep-Dipped Expressionists: Garden-fresh salsas, chunky artisan bruschetta, or warm, cheesy tomato dips that require a sturdy chip and zero etiquette.

🍅 The Sunday Morning Modernists: Rich, slow-simmered marinaras, secret Sunday sauces, or a tomato soup so comforting it belongs in a gallery.

🍅 The Chill Realists: Vibrant, heat-beating gazpachos, breezy patio pasta salads, or rustic flatbreads that taste like August on a plate.

Whether your entry is meticulously chopped, beautifully blistered, slow-stewed, or just served fresh off the vine with a little attitude, show us how you do summer's favorite fruit. 

Grab a basket of local maters, leave the rules at the door, and show the world your ultimate flavor masterpiece!

This year, we'll be accepting entries on the Saturday before the festival at Lockeland Table from 10:30 am - 12 pm, August 1st. The chosen winner's recipe will appear on the menu with Chef Hal’s take the Saturday of Tomato Art Festival and of course, we'll celebrate the winner on socials.

There is no limit to the number of recipes participants may enter. Each entry must be accompanied with a written recipe with all ingredients, which can remain private should the participant choose, just let us know on the entry. Entrants must register in advance and may do so until August 1st at 10:30 am. Judging is not open to the publix. Winners will receive a gift package from eastside retailers Abode Mercantile, Turnip Truck Natural Market, and more!

When: Saturday August 1st, 10:30am-12pm

Where: Lockeland Table

Community Ambassador: Mike Smith & Ron Snitker