I learned to make this dish, fittingly, in Provence, where I lived for nine months in my early 20s. It’s super simple, very tasty, and a wonderful way to steer tomatoes into the cooler evenings when you want something hot on your dinner plate. I like to use medium-sized slicing tomatoes, but it works with plum and cherry types too. You’ll definitely want some of your homemade breadcrumbs for this—don’t insult great tomatoes with lackluster crumbs. Other than that, you’re looking at a 5-ingredient dish that takes all of 3 minutes to prep and then a short spell in the oven to finish.
It’s a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, too, and in addition to the untraditional hack I’ve added to boost the flavor, I also have a number of clever suggestions below for ways in which any leftovers can help you create future meals in minutes flat. This approach is something that just about all recipes ignore: ways in which the work you do to prepare one meal can be banked in the fridge and used to cut back dramatically on the labor needed to make subsequent meals of great flavor and nutrition. That’s a big part of what I aim to teach you here, because meals don’t exist in a vacuum—they’re part of a continuum. Learning to confidently navigate the flow from meal to meal is the defining skill behind great home cooking.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Things On Bread to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.