Spanish Pan Con Tomate, Tomato Bread 5 Minutes!

Recipe: Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread Recipe »

This Spanish Pan Con Tomate (Tomato Bread) is the ultimate simple tapas! Made with ripe summer tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and crusty bread it is fresh, healthy and delicious. Perfect for when you only have 5 minutes to make a snack or lunch! You will make this all summer long.

About This Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread

This Spanish Pan Con Tomate aka bread with tomato is also called pan tumaca or pa amb tomàquet in Catalan. It is one of the most popular tapas dishes in the Catalan region in Spain. It's a simple but delicious snack made of toasted or untoasted bread, rubbed with garlic and topped with tomato. I'll also share my tip for sweetening up your tomatoes (and no it's not sugar? ;)).

With just 4 ingredients it is all about the ingredients, particularly the tomatoes. If you're coming into summer, this is the tasty snack you want to make again and again (I'm speaking from personal experience haha!). All you need are bread, tomatoes, olive oil and garlic to make this delicious, healthy snack.

I love making pan con tomate when I only have time for a quick lunch but I want something healthy too.

If you grow tomatoes and have a surplus, this recipe uses up 600g or 1.3lbs of tomatoes for just 4 toasts!

Video How To Make Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread

Video: How to Make Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread

Ingredients For Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread

Bread - Use your favourite sturdy bread for toast or tartines. The only bread I'd avoid is the supermarket square loaves.

Tomatoes - Fresh, sun kissed tomatoes. Make sure that these are ripe.

Extra virgin olive oil - Spanish or Italian extra virgin olive oil (avoid virgin olive oil or pure olive oil as they are lower quality and have flavour defects)

Salt to taste - Flaked, fine or kosher salt is great! Any works.

Garlic cloves - Fresh garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half.

Tips For Making Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread

1 - I recommend making Pan Con Tomate during summer in tomato season. The tomatoes will be sweeter and since you use a lot of them, it will be economical too.

2 - You can use any tomatoes - heirloom, beefsteak truss or Roma tomatoes. Aim for the best tomatoes you can afford or acquire but don't get hung up on it. I've made this with just regular round and it's still delicious!

3 - Toast the bread so that it is golden and crunchy enough to rub the garlic against. It doesn't have to be as toasted as bread for bruschetta but you want the bread to act as a grater for the garlic clove.

4 - Use a coarse grater or the coarse section on a box grater to make the tomato pulp. Use the skin of the tomato to protect your fingers against the grater. Ripe tomato is very soft so you won't have to press very hard to release the pulp.

5 - We sieve the tomatoes of the water so that the bread doesn't become too soggy. Tip: season that tomato water and add a buit of olive oil and you have tomato consomme (remember when restaurants served tomato consomme?)!

6 - Traditional Pan Con Tomate just uses a very light brush of fresh tomato. This is a modern version that has been widely adopted because it is so delicious.

7 - I have a little tip for when your tomatoes are not sweet and they're a bit acidic. Add a pinch of bicarb to your tomato pulp mixture! It acts as an alkaline and reduces the tomatoes acidity (like with this tomato pasta sauce recipe).

8 - I sometimes make a big batch of the tomato topping and keep it in the fridge for when I want a super easy snack on a really hot day. It will last for 1-2 days in the fridge.

Pan Con Tomate Tomato Bread Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 3 minutes

Makes: 4 slices, serves 2

Ingredients Needed

• 4 slices white pane di casa bread, cut 1cm thick (around 180g/6ozs total)
• 600g/1.3lbs tomatoes
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (or to taste)
• Salt to taste (but err on the side of generous, I used two fat pinches of flaked salt)
• 2 large garlic cloves, peeled and halved

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 TOAST - Cut the bread into 1.5cm/0.6inch slices and toast until golden and crunchy.

Step 2 GRATE - While the bread is toasting, cut the tomatoes in half and grate with a coarse grater into a bowl. You should be able to just hang onto the skin and not grate fingers. Try and remove as much tomato flesh as possible without breaking the skin.

Step 3 SEASON - Strain the tomato mixture of any extra liquid. Season the remaining tomato pulp with salt and olive oil.

Step 4 TOPPING - Drizzle oil over the top of the toasts and rub one cut garlic half across the top (I like it garlicky!). Top with the tomato pulp and extra olive oil.

Substitution notes:

Use your favourite bread for this-I like pane di casa because it is sturdier but sourdough works too. Turkish bread is also nice for this.

Personal Note

Even though I may only have 5 minutes to make my lunch and 5 minutes to eat it, I make sure that I sit down and eat it at the table while looking out into the garden. I feel like it is a nice reset in a really hectic day. I was also prompted to do this by something that I recently saw on TikTok.

I told Mr NQN, "I heard from a pet psychic that one of the top 3 complaints from dogs that have crossed over that their biggest thing was that they were always eating against a wall, they wanted to eat with a view."

So I swapped around Teddy's bowl so that he could look outside into the garden when he was eating and watched to see if it made a difference. He did eat all of his food which he does half of the time. Then I looked at Milo whose bowl always faces the window and I laughed. Milo in his haste to devour his food, had manuevered himself around the bowl so his back was to the window and he was enthusiastically eating his food but completely ignoring the view! So I'd say maybe yes for Teddy and maybe no for Milo. But a yes for me!

So tell me Dear Reader, would you listen to a pet psychic? Have you ever tried Pan Con Tomate?