Baked Tomatoes with Pesto Breadcrumbs
This might just be the perfect summer into fall transitional recipe. It’s bright with summer flavors mixed with cozy comfort. It’s great for a healthy weeknight dinner as well as entertaining, plus it’s easy to make.
These breadcrumbs would taste good on almost anything. What can be better than toasted bread mixed with the flavors of pesto with sweet cherry tomatoes (and served with…burrata)? As the days get a little cooler and it gets darker a little earlier, it’s nice to have recipes that use remaining summer produce mixed with fall comfort.
Aside from tomatoes, you could sprinkle these breadcrumbs over shrimp, cod, salmon or chicken before baking, or over vegetables like peppers, zucchini or eggplant before roasting.
I bake the tomatoes enough to soften, but still have texture. They might even burst a little when you bite them, which is oddly satisfying paired with the crunchy pesto breadcrumbs and the creamy burrata or fresh mozzarella you should most definitely serve it with.
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Recipe for ‘Baked Tomatoes with Pesto Breadcrumbs’
Yields: 2-4 servings
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
Measurement weren’t exact for this one
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved long ways
1-2 cloves of garlic (depending on how garlicky you want it)
10ish leaves of fresh basil (can use dried if it’s all you have)
2ish tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
Some parm cheese (I broke off ~1 heaping tsp of small chunks with a knife)
1.5 cups of homemade breadcrumbs (*see notes) or 1 cup of packaged whole wheat breadcrumbs
Optional/not necessary: 1 tsp of pine nuts
a couple pinches of sea salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F.
Add all ingredients except tomatoes to a food processor and blend until fully mixed and there’s no large pieces of garlic.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place all the cherry tomatoes in one layer, cut side facing up.
Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture evenly over the tomatoes.
Bake for 20 minutes.
It’s that easy! If you want to take it to the next level, serve with burrata, or torn fresh mozzarella.
Notes
How to make homemade breadcrumbs: I use simple whole wheat bread (I’ve used sliced packaged or even pita). Pulse in a food processor until the size of peas or smaller. Bake in an oven heated to 350F for about 10 minutes. They’re done when dried but not yet golden brown.