Summertime is for tomatoes, hands down. Whether it's plain, big red ones or every color of heirloom under the sun, I'm finding myself unable to resist the siren song of tomatoes at the farmer's market each week. But that ain't a bad thing because I can turn them into one of our favorite, favorite summer dishes of all time.
The Southern classic tomato pie is something that I actually had never had until just a few years ago but now it just isn't summer without several of them, even though it's the stupidest idea ever to turn the oven to 425 in July. I know. But it's worth it.
Last week I was trying to clear out the freezer and came across the puff pastry sheets I forgot I bought and was like, tomato... pie... on a puff pastry. Let's try it. I based it on my go-to tomato pie recipe, tweaking the amounts and subbing out the cheeses for a nice, sharp cheddar. Let's just say, I made this Sunday and again Wednesday night and not just because I had several more tomatoes to use up in a short timespan.
Puff Pastry Tomato Pie
Ingredients
- One Pepperidge Farms puff pastry sheet thawed per directions
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 2 cup diced onion yellow or red onions work great here
- 1 ¼ cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
- ⅓ cup mayonnaise
- ½ tsp each of dried basil, oregano, black pepper
- dash of red pepper flakes optional
- 2 medium tomatoes
Instructions
- If you haven’t already, take the puff pastry out of the freezer and thaw it out per directions on the box.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F.
- Heat up the oil in a small saute pan over medium heat.
- Add the diced onions and saute until they are just starting to brown on the edges.
- Meanwhile, mix 1 cup of shredded cheese, the mayonnaise, and spices together in a mixing bowl. Set aside
- Slice the tomatoes about ¼″ thick. I like to use the very top of the tomato, cutting out the part where it was attached to the vine for no waste.
- Lay the puff pastry on a cookie sheet.
- Spread the onions over the puff, stopping about ¼″ from the outer edges.
- Lay the tomatoes over the onions, overlapping them if desired.
- Take this opportunity to fold the edges of the puff pastry inwards just a bit, like ⅛″. tomato pie on puff pastry
- Spread the cheese and mayo mixture over the tomatoes, using your fingers if necessary to get it to cover the tomatoes as best as possible.
- Top the mayo mixture with the remaining ¼ cup of cheese.
- Let it bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the cheese on top is brown and the puff pastry is puffed and golden brown.
Here's a tip you probably won't find anywhere else... once you remove your sizzling pie from the oven, you may notice oils from both the cheese and the puff pastry sliding around the bottom of the cookie sheet. As the pie cools, put an oven mitt under one edge of the pan so that the oil can slide down to the opposite edge and not sog up the bottom of the crust, PLUS it keeps you from eating that much more liquid fat!
