Roasted Tomatoes

Simple Roasted Tomatoes are a great side dish to grilled meats or an addition to a rich tomato sauce for pasta. Once you use roasted tomatoes in a sauce, you won’t go back to “regular” tomatoes!

This is a year-round dish — even those sad “pinkish” winter grocery store tomatoes should come out tasty. And in late summer, when those tomatoes in your garden are ripening and overloading the baskets on your kitchen counters, you can roast them and even freeze them for use later in the year.

Roasted Tomatoes are a simple way to use garden tomatoes that are past their prime (Photo Credit: Adroit Ideals)

I don’t add herbs to the tomatoes until after they are roasted. The herbs can tend to burn and provide a bitter flavor to the sweet roasted tomatoes.

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From the kitchen of A Food Lover’s Delight….

Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients:

1 lb fresh pear-shaped tomatoes, cored, and cut into halves lengthwise
2 T olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Turn on oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil for easy clean-up.
3. Drizzle 1 T olive oil on the foil, then add tomatoes, the rest of the olive oil, and toss.
4. Sprinkle cracked pepper and coarse sea salt crystals over the tomatoes.
5. Bake for 20 – 40 mins or until the tomatoes start to become caramelized and slightly charred.
6. Remove the tomatoes from the foil on the baking sheet while they are still hot so they don’t stick. Run a spoon around the mixture so it will release easily.

Makes about 2 cups. Refrigerate the roasted tomatoes packed in additional olive oil in a tightly-sealed container for up to a week.

Variations: Use cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, salad tomatoes, or whatever fresh tomatoes you have on hand. Roasting tomatoes is a great way to use up “past their prime” tomatoes and turn them into something wonderful. Add some peeled garlic cloves to roast along with the tomatoes and you’ll have a great start to a robust pizza or pasta sauce. And you can add fresh seeded, cored, and quartered bell peppers to the tomatoes for a flavorful roasted pepper-tomato medley.