Recipes

What To Do With All Those Cherry Tomatoes? Roast Em!

garden cherry tomatoes roasting recipe

A gardener I am not. We have two small container gardens off our deck in our backyard, and while I’m eager and excited in the late spring when we plant, by August I get frustrated with weeding (so I don’t) and then the novelty wears off. As this is our third summer with a garden, we’re learning a thing or two about what seems to work in that particular area and what doesn’t.

Our peas only yielded one plant and about a dozen peas, and we didn’t plant any peppers (I didn’t find the jalapenos hot at all last year) or lettuce. Instead, I planted a ton of cherry tomato plants along with some dill, zuchinni and pumpkin. Now, the cherry tomatoes are abundant and we weren’t keeping up since only 3/5 of us like them in salads. So, I took to the net to find out what I could do with them and found tons of people suggesting roasting!

Now I know why.

Roasting cherry tomatoes creates a delicious, succulent topping for grilled chicken, wraps or eggs. It also creates the base for delicious spaghetti sauce or soup later in the fall and winter if you pop them into freezer bags. I am super excited about my harvest now and can’t wait to make those dishes this fall using tomatoes we grew ourselves (yes, like an urban pioneer I am!)

Here’s the basic how-to:

roasting cherry tomatoes

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Cut your cherry tomatoes in half and add to a large salad bowl. Add 2 garlic cloves to the bowl and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

roasting cherry tomatoes

2. Spread the mixture on a large baking sheet and pop in your pre-heated oven for about 1 hour. Enjoy the amazing smell emitting and filling your kitchen and pat yourself on the back for being awesome and domestic and stuff.

roasted cherry tomatoes recipe

Remove from the oven and let sit to cool. Then, decide what you want to do with them – scoop them up and eat them right then and there unabashedly, or divide into zip loc bags to freeze. Two pans gave me two medium freezer bags of tomatoes to freeze plus a little container for topping my grilled chicken this week.

Now, I’m keeping an eye on the remaining tomatoes in my garden, still green and growing. I’m eager to pick them and make more freezer bags for sauce and soup this winter. They’re so delicious – why didn’t I think of this sooner?

In fact, if you don’t have a garden and find cherry tomatoes (or grape, or roma even) on sale, I’d suggest doing this for winter recipes as well. After all, we know how expensive produce gets at that point, especially here in Canada. Happy roasting!

 

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  • Try adding your favorite herb such as basil or rosemary to the oil before tossing the tomatoes & roasting them. So yummy. These are great to top off fish or pork too as well as on bread & crackers with a little grated cheese.

  • I love the sounds of this! Our tomatoes (in the city as a whole) aren\t doing amazing this year thanks to the cooler temperatures – im hoping it warms up enough to be able to try this with my harvest!

  • We’ve had a bumper crop so far this year for cherry tomatoes. I also add some basil and peppers from my garden too. Very yummy!

  • What a great idea!! I had three cherry tomato plants, so I was inundated with the little buggers!! I followed your instructions, and they came out perfect!! I did down most of them this way. The rest of them went into tomato sauce!! This idea works wonderfully!! thanks!!

    • I’m following a recipe where you do what you did, then cool them and put the mixture in the the Vitamix or other blender, even an immersion blender, maybe leaving a little juice behind in the pan. Blend thoroughly to make delicious tomato sauce.

  • I was so happy I read this recipe because I didn’t know you could freeze them. I am going to roast them right now. Thanks for the tip.

    • They are delicious on roasted cabbage steaks too! I never thought about freezing them though. Thanks

  • I tried roasting my cherry tomatoes this way and they were delicious. I froze some in small freezer bags and that way I can use them all winter long. We put them on top of pasta with a little ricotta for a meatless meal with a side salad and a nice hunk o garlic bread. Scrumptious.