Tomato Pie is a great way to use up an abundance of tomatoes from your garden. This easy fresh recipe is baked in a pie crust and covered with cheddar and ricotta cheese. It’s tasty served warm or cold. It tastes like pizza – it’s delicious!
Fresh Tomato Pie Recipe
It’s starting to be tomato season in our garden which means we’ll soon be picking hundreds of pounds of tomatoes. Things get a little wild during tomato season, with weekends needing to be dedicated to just canning tomato sauce, but I also get excited because of all the other recipes you can make with fresh tomatoes!
This Tomato Pie dish screams Summer to me. It’s full of flavor with juicy tomatoes and fresh basil. It uses up 4 big gorgeous beefsteak tomatoes, but honestly you can probably even throw a couple more in there if you’re drowning in tomatoes. My entire family loves it because they say it tastes just like pizza, even my 2 year old’s face is covered with tomato pie at dinner time!
This recipe requires a little bit of prep work, but trust me, it’s worth it in the end. When you sink your teeth into a fresh slice of tomato pie, you’ll fall in love.
Tips on How to Make a Tomato Pie
Pie Crust. You can use a homemade pie crust (that’s what I did) or you can use a frozen one. Whatever works for you! We’re going to bake this in the oven first for a few minutes to prevent it from becoming soggy.
Goodbye Mayo, Hello Garlic Paste. Lots of tomato pies call for mayonnaise, but mayo is one of my worst enemies. I don’t like it at all. Yuck. To tie this pie all together, instead we’re going to make a garlic paste as the base layer. This is going to infuse so much flavor into this Tomato Pie and have it tasting like pizza!
Tomatoes! This is called tomato pie so it’s filled with fresh tomatoes! 4 large beefsteak tomatoes in fact! This is one of my favorite recipes that tastes like Summer to me, I’m not sure if anything is better than tomatoes and basil picked just from the garden for dinner!
Cheese. Hello my name is Pamela and I’m a cheese lover. This recipe calls for 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese. On top we add an additional 1/2 cup creamy ricotta cheese. Yum!
Cheese quality is everything and that’s why I use Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar Cheese for this recipe. I like to use a naturally aged cheese bar and quickly grate it in my food processor, but you can buy it in the bag already shredded.
Cabot is my go to cheese brand (seriously, I love them for cooking and snacking!) and I love that they’re a co-operative owned by family run farms throughout New York and New England with 100% of profits going back to the farmers.
Layers. Tomato Pie is all about layers. It’s actually quite easy to make. First you’ll add the garlic paste, and then add the tomatoes, basil, cheddar cheese. Do this one more time. Finally, add ricotta cheese and a couple more tomato slices on top.
How to Make Garlic Paste
Garlic paste is easy to make and once you try it you’ll start adding it to all your recipes. In lasagna? Delicious. On grilled cheese? Delicious.
Peel 5 cloves garlic and finely chop them. Sprinkle salt on top of the garlic (completely cover it) and then carefully press down with the side of a knife to “crush it”. The salt acts like an abrasive and helps turn it into a paste. You can also use a mortar and pestle to crush the garlic too if that’s easier.
Don’t worry if you can’t turn it into a perfect paste, the main goal is to just get it crushed up some so it’s no longer big pieces.
How to Prevent a Soggy Pie
This is such a important step so please don’t skip it! Tomatoes are naturally juicy, after all, that’s why we love them. But juicy tomatoes can make a pie soggy which is absolutely what we don’t want. We want to remove some of the moisture from the tomatoes before we use them in our pie.
To do this slice the tomatoes and place them in a single layer on top of a paper towel. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt and let sit for 10-15 minutes. After this time, dab the top of the tomatoes gently to remove any extra moisture.
I hope you love this Tomato Pie recipe as much as my family does! Need more tomato recipes? Make sure to check out the bottom of this post for more recipe ideas!
FAQ for this recipe.
Can I make this tomato pie ahead of time? Absolutely. You can make up to 24 hours in advance. Then you can either serve it cold or warm it up.
Can I use different types of tomatoes? Sure, you can also use Roma Tomatoes which are great because they aren’t as watery. Also a variation of different color heirloom tomatoes makes a pretty pie!
Can I freeze tomato pie? You can, but I wouldn’t. Most likely it’ll end up very soggy once you defrost and reheat.
too many tomatoes?
Don’t let them to go waste! My favorite recipes are:
Fresh Tomato Salsa
Stewed Tomatoes
Italian Pasta Salad
Roma Tomato Soup
Cabbage Roll Casserole
Slow Cooker Cherry Tomatoes
Tip: You can freeze tomatoes!
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Tomato Pie
PrintIngredients
- 9 inch pie crust
- 5 cloves garlic
- 4 large beefsteak tomatoes sliced
- ¼ cup basil chopped
- 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- ½ cup ricotta cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Press pie crust in a 9 inch pie dish that's been sprayed with nonstick spray. Using a fork, gently press a few holes in the bottom and sides. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- Peel 5 cloves garlic and finely chop it. Sprinkle salt to cover top of the garlic, and then carefully press down with the side of the knife to turn the garlic into a paste. The salt acts as an abrasive and helps turn it into a paste. Once garlic is smooth and creamy, spread out on the bottom of the pie crust.
- Thinly slice the tomatoes and place in a single layer on top of paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and let sit for 10 minutes. During this time the tomatoes will release their moisture, and this will prevent the pie from turning soggy. This is a important step – please don’t skip it! Using a paper towel, dab the top of the tomatoes gently to remove any extra moisture.
- Arrange half of the tomatoes in the pie crust, overlapping so they cover it.
- Add half of basil on top of the tomatoes.
- Add half of the shredded cheese on top of the basil.
- Repeat again with tomatoes, basil and shredded cheese. Save 3-4 tomato slices for next step.
- Spread ricotta cheese on top of the pie. Place remaining slices of tomatoes on top.
- Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and brush butter on top of crust. Bake for 5 more minutes. Remove from oven allow to cool for 10 minutes. Garnish with additional fresh basil on top for presentation before serving.
Mariajose says
Wow this is me condensed into a recipe. Im taking notes. Any tips on making a pie crust though?