A Quick Vegetarian-Friendly Stuffed Tomatoes Recipe

Sometimes a recipe will say that it will only take you 30 minutes, but they forget to account for the prep time, which can add a considerable amount of minutes to your time in the kitchen. More often than not, you will wind up spending 40 minutes chopping vegetables and seasoning meat before you even start the 30-minutes-turned-hour-plus-long journey of making yourself dinner.

With this recipe for vegetarian-friendly stuffed tomatoes, you'll spend just 2 minutes of your time doing the necessary prep work and only 20 minutes of actual cooking before you turn standard normal tomatoes into something memorable: sweet, creamy, crunchy, and imbued with faint whispers of garlic and fresh basil. You could easily have this on the table in less than 30 minutes, so it's great for when you're in a time crunch or rushing to make a quick weeknight dinner everyone will love (yes, even people who don't like raw tomatoes will love this dish.). It's delicious and a totally versatile dish for many different main courses. If you want to take these over the top, (and make them carnivore-friendly) try wrapping each tomato with a slice of prosciutto before baking. Pork or not, these are a perfect partner for steak with red wine sauce or smothered pork chops.

Nutrition: 160 calories, 8 g fat (3.5 g saturated), 360 mg sodium

Serves 4

You'll Need

4 medium beefsteak or other round tomatoes
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1⁄2 cup fresh goat cheese or feta
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp finely minced garlic
Salt and black pepper to taste6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

How to Make It

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and use a spoon to scoop out the core and seeds and discard.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, basil, olive oil, and garlic and season with salt and black pepper.
4. Stuff the tomatoes with the mixture.
5. Place the tomatoes in a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, until the bread crumbs are golden brown and the tomatoes are lightly caramelized.

This recipe (and hundreds more!) came from one of our Cook This, Not That! books. For more easy cooking ideas, you can also buy the book!