Marinated Tomato Bruschetta with Herbed Ricotta

I've said before, many times, in fact, that the sign of a great cook is someone who knows when not to add too many ingredients. The cook's job is never to keep adding ingredients until something tastes good. A cook's job is to add just enough to bring out the great natural flavour of the ingredients. I don't think that I could come up with a dish that better illustrates that point than this balsamic marinated tomato bruschetta. It is about as basic as it comes. Take some fresh tomatoes, add a few fresh herbs, a bit of garlic, salt, pepper, sugar, and a touch of balsamic vinegar. Put the tomatoes on bread with herb and garlic ricotta and call it a day. Let the flavour of those beautiful tomatoes shine through. Ready to see exactly how to make this? Good, because I'm ready to show you. Find the recipe directly below but keep reading for more expanded instructions.

Preparing The Balsamic Marinated Tomatoes

Roasted Grape Tomatoes

Unsurprisingly, the first step in making this delicious bruschetta is to make the bruschetta mix. It starts with a pint of grape tomatoes. Toss the tomatoes with a bit of olive oil, about a tablespoon, then season them generously with salt and pepper. Put the tomatoes in a small roasting pan and roast them at 400°f for 15 minutes.

Quartered Cherry Tomatoes

The next step is to quarter some cherry tomatoes. If you can, get cherry tomatoes in a variety of shapes and colours. This will add to the visual appeal of the bruschetta. Once quartered, put the cherry tomatoes in the bowl you tossed the grape tomatoes in.

Sliced Vine Ripened Tomatoes

Finally, take two vine-ripened tomatoes, cut them in half, then slice them about half a centimetre thick. Add them to the bowl with the cherry tomatoes.

Onion and Garlic

Now that all the tomatoes are in the bowl or still in the oven, it's time to move on to the other bruschetta mix ingredients. Take half a small red onion and slice it as thinly as you can. You want about half a cup. Then, mince two to three cloves of garlic. Add the onion and garlic to the tomatoes.

Herbs and Seasoning

To finish the bruschetta mixture, slice (chiffonade) six basil leaves and add them to the tomatoes. Season the mixture with a big pinch of kosher salt and a few turns of a pepper mill. Add a teaspoon of sugar, a tablespoon of olive oil and three tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. At this point, the roasted grape tomatoes should be ready to come out of the oven and can be added to the mixture. Stir well. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least two hours. The longer this sits, the more flavour it will develop, so feel free to make it the day before you want to serve it.

Herb and Garlic Ricotta

Okay, the bruschetta mixture is great on its own. Really, you can eat it as is. But, if we can make it that little bit better, why wouldn't we? So, now it is time to make the herb and garlic ricotta. If you want to skip this step, you can use herb and garlic Boursin or cream cheese. Start with three sprigs of fresh thyme, one sprig of fresh rosemary, and about six basil leaves. Mince the thyme and rosemary. Slice (chiffonade) the basil. Mince two cloves of garlic, then mix the herbs and garlic with a 280 g container of ricotta. Keep the mixture covered in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

Assemble The Bruschetta

Just two little notes before we finish this off. First of all, my new book officially comes out today!! You can get your copy here. When you get your copy, it would mean the world to me if you left a review on amazon. Secondly, in the recipe above, I say to drizzle the bread with olive oil, then toast it in the oven. I only made one piece of toast, so I toasted it in my toaster. You can do the same. But, if you are making the full recipe for using baguette rounds to make hors d'oeuvres defiantly toast it in the oven.

Take your toasted bread and spread the ricotta mixture in a thick layer, right to the edges of the bread. Use a perforated spoon to scoop out the tomato mixture and top the bread with it.

Serving The Balsamic Marinated Tomato Bruschetta

Serve the bruschetta as is or garnish with basil leaves or microgreens. A nice crisp white wine or prosecco goes very well with this, BTW.

The Wrap Up

If you are wondering how good this actually is, let me tell you that I recently served this as the first course at a wedding and the bride's mother liked it so much that she requested I share the recipe. So, this recipe is dedicated to her. If that isn't a solid endorsement of this bruschetta, nothing is.