Tag Archives: ricotta tart

pesto tomato tart

Tomato, Pesto, Ricotta Tart Recipe

Tomato season is over for us.  It’s been over for a couple of weeks.  I would be devastated but for the fact that I ate a couple hundred pounds of them while they were going strong and ended on a high note with my tomato tart experiments.  The last version, the one I’m going to share with you, I made for our friends who are moving out of state.  I needed to make something memorable enough that they’ll be inspired to come back and visit us.

It’s super easy unless you have to make your pesto from scratch, plus make your own ricotta (as I usually do), and then, of course, there’s the crust to make.  Wait!  Seriously, none of those things are difficult to make and if you’re not up to making them all yourself you can buy them pre-made.  If tomato season is already over for you too then you have two choices: bookmark this for next year or if you happen to have any sundried or oven roasted tomatoes in your freezer- you can top the tarts with those.  Whatever you do, don’t use hothouse tomatoes from the store.  Banish the thought!

Tomato, Pesto, Ricotta Tart Recipe

makes 6 individual tarts or one 9? tart

Tomato, Pesto, Ricotta Tart Recipe

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Cut the pie dough into six equal sized pieces. Roll out and fit into the tart pans. Put all the filled tins into the freezer for 20 minutes.
  2. Blend the ricotta with the pesto until completely incorporated.
  3. Remove the tart tins from the freezer and fill each one with the ricotta, dividing it evenly between them all. Smooth the surface of the ricotta out in each tin. Arrange three slices of tomatoes on the top and brush with olive oil.
  4. Arrange on a baking sheet (to catch any spillage) and bake for one hour (or until the crust is golden).

Notes

If you’re using a 9? tart tin, arrange the tomatoes slightly overlapping each other starting with the outer edge and work your way to the center in a spiral. You may notice the lack of additional salt or pepper in this recipe- that’s because pesto is usually already salted and peppered and it is enough for the whole dish. I did salt and pepper the tomatoes in one version but I didn’t think it added anything to the tarts. I freeze the dough before baking because it keeps it from shrinking down in the oven while baking. If you never have this issue and prefer to refrigerate before filling, as most recipes suggest, go ahead and do that. Many ricotta recipes call for an egg to help set it up but I find this is usually unnecessary. Sometimes when I make my own ricotta I add a little bit of milk when stirring it up because it gets a bit dry after draining off the whey, so if your ricotta is homemade, make sure it’s not dry- it’s going to cook for an hour which will dry it out more.

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Here’s how I layered my tomatoes for a full sized tart.

If your tomatoes are huge you may only want to put one slice on top, as I’ve done here.