Cherry tomatoes are baked with olive oil and garlic until jammy and sweet, then we add white beans for a comforting and easy summer meal. Enjoy with rice, or dunk chunks of sourdough bread or baguette into the sauce.

If you are a parent in a pandemic, you know the predicament of trying to be an employee, a mom/dad, a teacher, a maid, a spouse, and a nurse all at the same time. Let’s be honest, lockdown hasn’t been kind to us parents and while we enjoyed extra time with the kids, it has, at times, been hard to be everything all at once, without losing ourselves a little bit. 

While I tried to keep up with cooking fresh meals for us daily, I’ve also tried to make things easier on me where cooking was concerned. Enter easy dinners/lunches that require few ingredients but deliver big time on flavour. Enter this cherry tomato and cannellini bean bake. And yes, enter a manageable arsenic hour. (If you are not aware, arsenic hour is the stretch before dinner when everyone is hungry, tired, and has a twist in their knickers.)

How to make this roasted cherry tomato with beans recipe

This is another recipe with a short ingredient list, and as I always say, it’s good to buy the best you can afford, as it really makes a difference. 

To make this recipe for roasted cherry tomatoes with cannellini beans, you bake cherry tomatoes with olive oil, a few cloves of garlic, and a few sprigs of oregano. While the tomatoes are roasting, you drain and rinse the canned beans, and perhaps start cooking a pot of basmati rice to serve it with. Or you can slice up some sourdough bread or baguette to mop up the sauces. 

When the tomatoes are golden in places, are soft and jammy, you add to the pan the drained beans and return the pan to the oven until the beans have heated through.

Substitutions

• you can substitute any white bean for the cannellini beans. Small navy beans, Great Northern, or white kidney beans all work great. Romano beans will work as well, but the presentation won’t be as nice as with white beans
• use rosemary instead of the oregano if that’s what you have to hand
• I don’t recommend subbing other tomatoes for the cherry tomatoes. Larger ones would have to be diced and then they just melt into a sauce in the pan

When I posted the images for this roasted cherry tomatoes with cannellini beans on my instagram feed, I got so many messages asking me how I made it, so here it is. I hope you give it a try and it saves your sanity one evening (lockdown or no lockdown), just as it did mine many times over. 

Roasted cherry tomato with cannellini beans

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mediterranean, Vegan, Vegetarian

Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 680 g cherry tomatoes washed and halved if walnut-sized or larger
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3-4 sprigs fresh oregano or ½-1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 7-12 cloves of garlic peeled or unpeeled, as you prefer*
• 2 teaspoons hot honey optional
• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt or to taste
• 1 can 14 oz of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed or 3-3 ½ cups cooked white beans
• Black pepper freshly ground, to taste

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 425F (210 C). Place the cherry tomatoes in a half sheet (9×13 inch) pan, one with higher sides that will allow you to easily stir the contents of the pan. Pour the olive oil over the tomatoes, then add the garlic cloves, oregano sprigs, salt, and drizzle in the honey. Stir everything together with your hands or a large spoon.
• Roast the tomatoes for 25 minutes, or until they are jammy and golden in spots, stirring once halfway through the baking time. When done, pull the pan from the oven and add the drained cannellini beans. Stir them through, to distribute them evenly among the tomatoes and garlic. Return the pan to the oven, and roast for another 7-10 minutes, until the beans have warmed through.
• Once done, taste and adjust for salt, adding more if necessary, as well as a grind of black pepper.
• Serve this tomato and bean bake with cooked basmati rice (spoon the sauce over the rice), or with chunks of baguette or sourdough, so you can mop up the delicious, tomatoey sauce that lies at the bottom of the pan. I also like serving a fresh cucumber salad with this dish, to brighten the meal a little bit.

Notes

Notes: If you leave the garlic unpeeled, when serving, squeeze out each garlic clove from the papery skin, and add it to the tomatoes. It tastes amazing!

The hot honey does not make the dish spicy, however it adds a gentle chili heat in the back of the mouth, so you might want to leave the hot honey out if cooking for children.

Keyword roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted cherry tomatoes with beans, roasted tomatoes, tomato confit, white bean dishes, white beans

If you have extra beans on hand, make my other favourite bean dishes, either this delicious bean and arugula pesto salad or if the weather’s on the cool side, this very green minestrone. Hope you enjoy, and leave any questions in the comments!

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