Heather says:
Looking for a tomato side dish? How about one with bacon? This easy recipe for stuffed tomatoes comes together very quickly, is company-worthy, can be made the night before, and could even be baked in a toaster oven -I don’t have one, but I plan to remedy that. I want to put it on the back porch and avoid heating the house entirely during these summer months. Consider placing a foil tent over the tomatoes the first half of baking to prevent over-browning in a toaster oven. As an aside, this totally makes a kicking side for an otherwise boring meal like tuna salad sandwiches.
For a vegetarian version, swap out the bacon for a few mushrooms sautéed in a tiny bit of olive oil or butter. If you want, this could make a great main dish, but I would consider upping the amount of bacon or adding cooked and shredded chicken. Even though the stuffing appears fairly dry when mixing, it’s quite moist but not soggy after baking.
To make printing a little easier, I’m keeping all the text together this time. Let me know if that’s helpful. The print-friendly button makes removing extraneous text and pictures quickly and easily, but we’re all about easier here. (Why do I talk about myself in plural?)
Stuffed Tomato Recipe Ingredients:
- 4 slicing tomatoes (Big Boy etc., not Roma or cherry)
- 4 slices of bacon cooked and chopped
- 1 med bell pepper, diced
- 4 TBSP grated parmesan cheese (no reason to use the expensive kind in this recipe)
- 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
- fresh ground pepper – to taste, just a few turns
- 2 TBSP approximately olive oil – to brush the top
Stuffed Tomato Recipe Directions
Slice top off of the tomatoes, scoop out the seeds which may be discarded. Use a knife to hollow the tomato carefully. Just slice through the internal walls, and it may be pulled from the bottom.
Coarsely chop about 1/3 of the pulp -not the seeds- and toss this into a bowl. This adds the bacon, bell pepper, parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and fresh ground pepper. Mix the stuffing well. Fill each tomato with the cheese mixture. Place in a small baking dish, brush or drizzle with olive oil and bake at 350F for 25 minutes unless the tomatoes were stuffed and held in the refrigerator. In that case, it will take 40 – 50 minutes.
Enjoy!
Submitted to Tasty Tuesdays @ Beauty and Bedlam.
My mom made these and I did not like them. Yours look better tho. Like the bacon and pepper….that might be key.
I have seen variations with white wine and parsley which isn't my favorite flavor combination unless there is a lot of butter and garlic involved. Vampirism doesn't run in my family.
These look good. I'll try them this summer sometime. My husband has a gigantic aversion to stuffed bell peppers due to his mom's growing up. However, he's never mentioned any other stuffed vegetables. There's a restaurant out here called Rutabegorz that serves great stuffed squashed and stuffed mushrooms (big ones), and I've always wanted to try making them. Maybe your stuffing could work well for other vegetables too. I think they cover them with cheese on top before baking.
I'm making these for dinner tonight! Adding the cooked chopped chicken per your suggestion and I substituted a serrano pepper for bell pepper because I hate bell peppers.
Though it occurs to me that I have no idea how to eat these things, I look forward to trying!
These were really delicious, and not at all difficult to eat! Although, I now understand why your recipe says to put them in a small baking dish – both of mine split/fell over (I halved the recipe to make enough for just two people). They were still really good though.
I'm so glad you liked it. If you want the tomatoes to stand up on their own, you can cut a very thin slice from the bottom, being careful to not cut into the cavity. In that case, I would use a touch of cooking spray to keep it from sticking.
This sounds SOO good, I just wish my family would eat something like this!!
Thanks for sharing!
I love stuffing tomatoes and peppers. this looks and sounds delicious, Heather!
I love stuffed tomatoes – yours look scrumptious!
Looks delicious
These look so delicious–I am printing right now!
Looks very delicious, I will definitely test this recipe! 🙂
Awesome images they clarify to an unfamiliar cook 🙂 Im trying this one asap…thank you for posting