These roasted cherry tomatoes are one of those simple recipes that instantly make everything taste better. Cherry tomatoes are slow roasted with olive oil and garlic until sweet and jammy. They're super versatile and I'm going to show you the myriad ways to use them, plus a bonus recipe idea!
About These Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Roasted Cherry Tomatoes are wonderful for pasta, pizzas, to fill calzones and to make bruschetta. Make the most of these summery tomato treats by simply roasting them until soft, sweet and bursting with flavour.
How long do you roast cherry tomatoes in the oven? You roast cherry tomatoes from anything from 20 minutes to 45 minutes but it depends on the temperature you're roasting them at. We are not roasting them quickly because we want the garlic to soften. All ovens are different and also cherry tomatoes do vary in size and ripeness so always check on your tomatoes as they are roasting.
What to do with roast cherry tomatoes? Add them to salads, soups, in a pasta sauce, in omelettes or sandwiches or on top of burrata. I love to fill calzones with cherry tomatoes and top crostini with them to make a modern bruschetta!
Can I roast cherry tomatoes and then freeze them? Yes freeze them in the oil in small portions (around 100g/3.5ozs).
Bonus: I'll show you how to make the most delicious modern tomato bruschetta. A few weeks ago I showed you how to make a traditional tomato bruschetta. This is a modern version using burrata and roasted cherry tomatoes!
Video How To Make Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Video: How to Make Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Ingredients for Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
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Cherry tomatoes - use red cherry tomatoes or a medley mix of cherry tomatoes. Try and keep the tomatoes a consistent size so that they cook for the same time.
Garlic - I use either 1 large head of garlic or 2 small heads, depending on what I can get at the shops.
Extra virgin olive oil - always go for extra virgin, not virgin or pure olive oil.
Salt and black pepper - Use flaked or fine/kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
Tips For Making Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
1 - You can halve the cherry tomatoes, which takes less time to cook. I have a recipe here for some halved roasted cherry tomatoes. But we are roasting these ones whole because I wanted to show how easy and tasty whole ones are (and they're easier to prepare too).
2 - Keep the oven relatively low at 155C/311F fan forced so that the garlic cooks nice and slow and caramelises. Then once it has cooled off, squeeze the garlic out of the skins and mix with the tomatoes and oil.
3 - To make a modern bruschetta using these tomatoes, toast pane di casa bread until golden on both sides. Make sure that it is a warm golden colour and evenly toasted (this is to ensure that the bruschetta remains crunchy). Drizzle with a teaspoon of the oil from these tomatoes. Then rub a clove of garlic against the bread and then top with torn burrata, 3-4 of these cherry tomatoes, grated parmesan and basil! To see the method of rubbing garlic, have a look at my traditional tomato bruschetta recipe here.
Step 1 PREPARE- Preheat oven to 150C/300F fan forced or 170C/338F conventional. Cut the tops off the garlic head and snip off any extra tendrils from the root with scissors. Place in the centre of a baking dish and add the cherry tomatoes, oil, sugar, salt and black pepper.
Step 2 ROAST - Roast for 50-60 minutes or until wrinkled and sweet (it depends on how small the tomatoes are). When the garlic has cooled off, squeeze the garlic out of the skins (and discard) and mix with oil and tomatoes.
NOTE: If you like your cherry tomatoes blistered, increase the temperature to 180C/350F and roast for 30-40 minutes or until blistered to your liking.
Substitution notes and ingredients:
Cherry tomatoes can be subbed with grape tomatoes or other coloured baby tomatoes!
You can sub the olive oil for another oil that you like eg grapeseed or avocado oil.
If you don't have a whole garlic head, you can add peeled garlic cloves instead.
Personal Note
I made a big batch of these tomatoes for a family get together because we were using them inside some calzones. In the morning I put them on and by the time lunchtime rolled around these were cooked and cooled so that they could be snatched up and eaten by eager hands. The wonderful thing about these is that they're so sweet and seasoned so you don't need to do anything with these apart from eating them.
After lunch Mr NQN's sister Amaya told me that she had brought her little karaoke set with her. It was just one from the supermarket and it had a little bluetooth speaker and microphones. You needed to cast youtube on it.
We decided that the best way to enjoy karaoke is not to have one person singing a whole song but to take turns singing a verse or two. Sometimes waiting for someone to sing a whole song can be a bit boring but this way everyone gets a turn. And it was the most fun I've had doing karaoke because of this!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you prefer roasting your cherry tomatoes whole or halved? Which idea for serving roasted cherry tomatoes did you like best?
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