8 delicious tinned tomato recipes
Tomatoes are a summer staple. But as tomato season starts to draw to an end for another year, it's time to start relying on tinned tomatoes. Some recipes are just better made with tinned tomatoes rather than fresh ones, too! These recipes are the reasons we always have a few tins of tomatoes in our pantry.
8 delicious tinned tomato recipes
Tomatoes are a summer staple. But as tomato season starts to draw to an end for another year, it's time to start relying on tinned tomatoes. Some recipes are just better made with tinned tomatoes rather than fresh ones, too! These recipes are the reasons we always have a few tins of tomatoes in our pantry.
Of all the wonderful fruits and vegetables that summer brings, tomatoes are always top of our wish lists. Some of those tomatoes come straight from the vine, ripe with the gentle scent of pepper and bursting with sweet flavour, but our cupboards stay well-stocked with tins of tomatoes too. If you’re making a salad, of course you’re going to want the freshest, ripest tomatoes you can find, but what about a pizza, or a pasta sauce? There’s no replacement for the richness and flavour of good tinned tomatoes.
Tinned tomatoes still have a bit of a reputation for being lesser in comparison to fresh, but often in the UK that simply isn’t the case. If you’re buying your fresh tomatoes from supermarkets, chances are they have been off the vine for many many days before they reach your basket. By comparison, good tinned tomatoes from well-known brands such as Cirio are often picked and tinned within twenty-four hours, so by the time they get to you, they still have almost all of their flavour.
Tinned tomatoes are essential in the winter, in part because good fresh tomatoes simply aren’t available, but also because they’re ideal for all your favourite soups, stews and braises. That said, we find that we go through just as many tins in the summer. Scroll down and you’ll see what we’ve been cooking – eight recipes that we can’t go without in the summer!
Pizza and focaccia are two examples of recipes where tinned tomatoes are ALWAYS better. Two of our favourite recipes are below. Our Bloody Mary focaccia with lime salt is an inspired take on the classic cocktail. Trust us - you won't regret giving this one a go!
The great advantage of a seafood tagine is that you can make something delicious in a relatively short amount of time, as the mussels, squid and prawns only need a few minutes to cook! Nargisse sweats onions then adds peppers, carrots, celery, tinned tomatoes and a whole host of spices to create her tagine base, before cooking the seafood. After that, a crumbling of feta finishes the dish with some gentle acidity and richness. A lovely recipe for a family lunch in the sunshine.
Forget your bland, squishy boiled broccoli – roasting is the way to go with this tasty, ubiquitous brassica. Dress it in oil, salt and pepper and roast it in a hot oven for fifteen minutes, and the results are fantastic – the florets go crispy, whilst the stalk cooks but retains a nice bite. The tomato sauce needs a bit of love – the balsamic vinegar is essential, as the sweetness balances the bitterness of the tahini dressing – but if you have a spare hour, you can easily whip up this delicious dinner.
Whenever we’re looking for a simple, delicious pasta recipe, we turn to Limewood’s Luke Holder – and his agnolotti pappa al pomodoro doesn’t disappoint. We’d recommend making everything in advance before you start filling your agnolotti, as you want the filling to be as cold as possible; once you get into a rhythm, you’ll be flipping agnolotti into your semolina like a seasoned old nonna.
Rougaille is a Creole dish, the Mauritian equivalent of something like a menemen in Turkey, or a shakshuka in north Africa. A sauce of sweated vegetables and chopped tomatoes becomes a bed for eggs, which are cracked into the sauce then simultaneously braised from underneath and grilled from above. A cracking summer breakfast.
Chillis are the perfect vehicle for high quality tinned tomatoes. This zingy spiced chilli uses tinned plum tomatoes and is a midweek meal that everyone in the family will enjoy!
Luke Holder's rich and comforting sausage ragù recipe is a feast for the senses. Packed with flavour from chickpeas, chorizo, paprika, Italian sausage, and a good quality tin of plum tomatoes, of course!
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