Roasted Tomatoes
I started making this dish several years ago when I had a glut of garden tomatoes. We were eating tomatoes often, in so many different ways, but all were uncooked. I needed another way and realized I could roast them. Turning the oven on in the summer doesn’t heat up the kitchen much as long as I don’t open the oven door a lot.. I started making them in the summer but continued making Roasted Tomatoes throughout the fall and winter.
Roasting a tomato brings out the sweetness and richness of a tomato so that even winter tomatoes taste good roasted. I always use olive oil and salt on the tomatoes. Depending on what else I am making, I change up the rest of the seasonings . In the summer I use fresh oregano, lemon thyme and basil from the garden. I use dry herbs and spice mixes out of my spice cabinet in the winter.
Because spice mixes have many different spices in them the flavors are more complex. In one dash, I can get a lot of flavor without taking a bunch of things out of the spice cabinet. I never liked spice mixes before, preferring to put on the mix of spices that I wanted individually. This is so many more steps and more time consuming so that spice mixes have become part of my new repertoire.
I’ve roasted tomatoes in two different ways. One is slow and takes about an hour and a half at a lower temperature. The other is quick and takes about 30 minutes. If the tomatoes are very unripe and I have the time I might use the slow way. I don’t often have the time. Most of the time I use the quicker recipe. I usually just want to get dinner on the table quickly and don’t want to put too much time or energy into a side dish.
Roasted Tomatoes
Ingredients
Basic Roasted Tomato Recipe
- 3 lbs Tomatoes cut in half, quarters or sixths depending on size
- 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 1-2 teaspoons Kosher Salt to taste
Optional Seasoning Choices
- This is not an exhaustive list, just some things I have used in the past. Pick 1-3 things that seem to go together!
- 3-4 Tablespoons grated or shredded Parmesan
- 1-2 teaspoons Onion or Garlic powder
- 2 Tablespoons Lemon Pepper unsalted
- fresh ground Black Pepper to taste (omit if you are using lemon pepper)
- 2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon chopped Fresh Herbs (except for basil- sprinkle on after roasting)
- 1 teaspoon dried Herbs
- 2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
- 4 cloves Garlic peeled and sliced
- 1 Tablespoon Everything Bagel Seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450
- Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer on a rimmed sheet pan making sure there is at least a one inch space around each one.
- Drizzle olive oil on each tomato.and sprinkle with the Kosher salt.
- Choose what other kind of seasoning you want on your roasted tomatoes and sprinkle what you want on each tomato.
- Roast for 25-35 minutes in center of oven until tomatoes begin to brown and get caramelized.
