Breakfast Tomatoes

These Breakfast Tomatoes always feature in our weekend breakfasts. They will elevate your cooked breakfast and are so quick and easy to make. Using only 4 ingredients – tomatoes, honey, salt and olive oil (or butter), you will have these made and ready to eat in minutes.

There is nothing worse than sitting down to a breakfast that includes a tomato half that is undercooked, as if it’s an afterthought. I wanted to create a tomato dish that was tasty and complements all the other components on a breakfast plate – conventional or contemporary. I particularly enjoy these tomatoes with eggs, bacon or halloumi. See my ‘suggestions’ on other ways to serve them as part of a breakfast.

Why I love this recipe:

The beauty of this recipe is that it can also be used as a sauce to serve with pasta, rice or seafood and as it can be cooked longer and made thicker, it can be also be served as a condiment sauce with sausage rolls (meat or vegetarian), pies or sausages.

It is a very quick and easy recipe to make and can be made year round. There is an abundance of ripe and sweet tomatoes in Summer while in Winter, I use the punnets of sweet baby Roma tomatoes that are readily available in supermarkets and greengrocers.

I have called this recipe ‘Breakfast Tomatoes’, although you will find many other ways to use this sauce/condiment. You can easily increase the sweetness or thickness to suit your taste and how you will be using them.

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes – use any sweet, ripe tomato. In Winter, I use the sweet baby Roma tomatoes that you buy in punnets. They are great to use when tomatoes aren’t in season.
• Olive Oil – or a mix of olive oil and butter, for cooking.
• Honey – I use a runny Manuka honey but just use your favourite.
• Salt – just a pinch to season.

Step by step Instructions:

1. Chop the tomatoes into small pieces (I cut the baby Roma or Cherry tomatoes into quarters).
2. A photo of the punnets of baby Roma tomatoes I often use for this recipe. In Summer, you can use any sweet, ripe tomatoes.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes to a frying pan over medium high heat.
4. Add the olive oil or olive oil/butter mix to the pan and stir through.
5. Sprinkle over a good pinch of salt and the honey and mix together.
6. 7, 8 and 9. Stir often until thickened. Taste for seasoning and add more honey or salt to suit your taste. Optional: add a little butter for a more rich, glossy sauce. Serve.

Tips and Tricks for Success:

This is a very easy and handy recipe to have in your repertoire as it can be made very quickly.

The tomatoes are diced and sautéed in olive oil or olive oil/butter with a little honey for sweetness and a pinch of salt for seasoning. They are reduced until slightly thickened and can be used in many ways. Everything is added to the frying pan at once. The tomatoes will release their juices and then start to thicken once the liquids evaporate. Keep an eye on them and stir more frequently once they start to thicken.

The beauty of this recipe is you can control the level of sweetness (by using more or less honey) to suit your own taste. You can also control how thick you want the sauce to be (according to cooking time).

This recipe can be made ahead of time and simply reheated when required. It can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Suggestions on how to use these Breakfast Tomatoes:

• serve as part of a cooked breakfast.
• serve with eggs on toast – boiled, poached, fried or scrambled.
• use in scrambled eggs: fold the cooked tomato mix through whisked eggs before adding to the pan.
• use in an omelette.
• use as a quick sauce for pasta or seafood.
• a great side dish to steak.
• mix through rice – a quick lunch dish I make is adding it to cooked rice with tinned tuna and a teaspoon of Korean Gochujang Paste.
• Make thicker by cooking longer and use as a condiment to serve with sausage rolls, pies, frittatas or fritters.