These easy baked basil tomatoes are the perfect summer side dish.
Scene: it’s 7pm on a weekday, I‘m just getting home from CrossFit, Ginger is waiting by the door, tail wagging and whining at me to take her for a walk, so out the door we go.
As we climb Mt. Everest in the neighborhood next to me, (seriously, it’s a hill of death but luckily my dog has no leash skills and therefore practically pulls me up the thing) I realize I forgot to defrost the chicken I had planned on making for dinner earlier in the day.
Which is pretty much the story of my life. I either suffer from memory loss when it comes to defrosting things or tempt fate with almost spoiled/forgot to transfer to the refrigerator once it was done thawing protein.
I can remember pretty much anyone’s birthday I’ve ever met in my life but defrosting protein is apparently too much for my brain to handle.
30 minutes later, we’re both home and both hungry. I stare at the fridge while Ginger sits patiently in the laundry room trying to will the closet door her food is behind open with her eyes.
Once the pup is fed, I realize I have an assortment of the new Bumble Bee SuperFresh™ seafood entrees in the freezer and there really couldn’t be a better time to test out the taste of these convenient little packages.
I chose the Spicy Shrimp Romanesco, boiled up some soba noodles, steamed some broccoli and had dinner done in less than 30 minutes that night.
Not only was it convenient, but it was ridiculously tasty too and made me realize I could turn these frozen seafood meals into a fancy looking dinner without a ton of effort pretty easily.
Which is exactly what I did with this one.
Salmon with Garden Pesto, baked basil breaded tomatoes and a cold glass of local fruity chardonnay…you’d never know it was ready in less than a half hour unless you read the back of the package.
The thing that makes these meals a keeper for me though isn’t the convenience; (although, that’s a huge plus as well) it’s the ingredient list.
Every one of the Bumble Bee SuperFresh™ entrees are fresh-frozen and contain all-natural ingredients.
Translation: I can read (and understand) every single thing in them (which isn’t many).
The seafood is sourced from sustainable farms, making these a frozen meal I can totally get behind.
MORE QUICK AND EASY MEALS LIKE THIS:
Lemon Spinach Feta Pasta
Maple Mustard Air Fryer Frozen Salmon
Air Fryer Frozen Chicken Breasts
Bucatini Pasta with Garlic Shrimp
Baked Basil Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 3 large vine ripened tomatoes, sliced in half
- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup almonds
- 1 tablespoon sliced shallots
- 1 tablespoon basil leaves
- extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Lay tomato halves in a baking dish.
- Place almonds in a food processor and pulse until the same texture/size as the panko breadcrumbs.
- Add the panko breadcrumbs, shallots & basil and pulse a few times until combined.
- Spoon the breadcrumb mixture on top of each tomato half.
- Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt & pepper.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Turn oven to Hi-Broil and broil for 1-2 more minutes until tops are golden/crispy.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
*This is a sponsored post on behalf of Bumble Bee SuperFresh™ . Content and opinions are my own.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
Yum those tomatoes look delicious :)
I love the sound of this and love that it’s so simple. My kind of meal, for sure!
Funny you mentioned….I have forgotten a bunch of times to take food out of the freezer to defrost too. Improvising comes easy as long as I have a well stock pantry :- ) I have never baked tomatoes before but I think I should give a go!
Love this and the Animoto. And totally lol’d because I did mine on the Pesto Salmon, too!
What a gorgeous meal, Gina!!! And your photos are stunning!
Ok… so this is a product I never would’ve tried, but since you recommend it I will :)
I was skeptical too (as I am of all frozen meals products) but I was really impressed with these! The spicy shrimp is still my fave :) They need “augmentation” to be a full dinner but a tasty/sustainable protein is always the hardest part for me so this is perfect in a pinch.
We all suffer from memory loss. I hate when I make a shopping list at the grocery store and end up buying everything else EXCEPT what’s on the list, even though it’s in my hand. And then I turn into uber-Indian-girl and buy more onions than a normal person should. Shit happens. What I will say is this: I’m rather obsessed with tomatoes right now since it’s summer and I tend to eat a ton of them during this season. You can bet those stuffed beauties are going to be made in my kitchen sometime this week.
bahahaha at the onion part!!
I was always so terrible about frozen foods – the point of I’d either forget to freeze them or I’d forget what was in the deep freezer and it’d get freezer burn. I pretty much store ice pops in there now lol. ;) Ps love the second pic! So pretty.
I love salmon, pity I can’t buy Bumble Bee here in Australia. Might create my own frozen version for those nights when I’ve lost inspiration and want to grab something from my freezer.