Stovetop & Oven

Balsamic Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Name: Balsamic Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
Prep time: 3 min
Cook time: 23 min
Total time: 26 min
Ingredients: 2 pints cherry tomatoes ((4 cups)); 2 shallots (sliced ¼-inch thick); 1 to 2 cloves garlic (sliced (optional)); ½ teaspoon dried herbs ((Italian seasoning, Herbes de Provence, dried thyme, dried oregano or any dried herb)); 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar; 6 to 8 fresh basil leaves; sea salt and freshly ground black pepper; fresh basil or parsley (for finishing)

These balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes are sweet like candy and delicious on a slice of bread, in a sandwich, in a pasta, on a pizza or as a topping for focaccia. With herbs, shallots and a good drizzle of balsamic vinegar they are a sweet-savory treat.

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Roasted cherry tomatoes being lifted out of a bowl with a spoon.

Why Roast Cherry Tomatoes?

If you’re asking me this question, you clearly have not eaten delicious balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes off a spoon before. When I say they are almost like candy, I’m not joking. They are so sweet you could almost serve them over a bowl of ice cream… almost. Roasting these sweet little tomatoes takes their sweet flavor and intensifies it even more, turning them into a treat that you can simply enjoy on a piece of bread or as an ingredient in so many other recipes.

Cherry tomatoes in a cardboard pint container, shallots, basil, balsamic vinegar on a wooden table.

A Few Simple Ingredients

Of course, you’ll first want to get ripe cherry tomatoes. There are many different varieties of cherry tomatoes. Some are sweeter than others, some are perfectly round while others are bell-shaped or oval, and they come in a variety of different colors, but any variety will do for roasting as long as they are ripe.

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Cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan with seasonings, shallots and basil.

How to Season Tomatoes for Roasting

While you can just throw tomatoes on a baking sheet and send them to the oven to roast, you can improve the final result immensely by adding just a few extra seasonings. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, some sliced shallot and dried herbs make a big difference. This recipe leaves you to decide which dried herbs you’d like to use. You could season the tomatoes with an herb blend like Italian seasoning, Herbes de Provence or a single dried herb like dried oregano, thyme or basil. Use what you have.

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Roasted Cherry Tomatoes on a baking sheet with an oven mitt.

How Long to Roast Cherry Tomatoes

Generally, the tomatoes should be in the oven long enough to start to burst and soften. For whole cherry tomatoes, that takes 20 to 25 minutes. Sometime, however, you might want to cut the tomatoes in half before roasting – when you want the look of halved tomatoes or when you want the tomatoes to be a little drier (cutting them in half allows for more evaporation in the oven). For halved cherry tomatoes, the roasting time drops to 15 minutes.

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Roasted cherry tomatoes in a brown bowl with sliced baguette and crostini near by.

Uses for Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

The easiest way to enjoy balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes is on a piece of bread – plain and simple. You can toast the bread into crostini or not, depending on the bread. You can also toss these cherry tomatoes into a pasta with pancetta or top a focaccia with the tomatoes before baking. I have to say, however, that I know once you’ve roasted these delicious gems once, you’ll have no trouble coming up with ideas of how to use them.