Ina Garten’s 4-Ingredient Appetizer I’m Making All Summer Long

Recently, my husband wandered into the kitchen while I was cooking and asked his standard query, “What are you making?” I was putting together a batch of Ina Garten’s Tomatoes Roasted with Pesto.

I described the process: The tomatoes are seasoned well and roasted briefly before being slathered with a bright basil pesto and a generous dusting of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Then, the gilded tomatoes are baked until they were bubbly and the cheese is a gorgeous golden brown.

Without missing a beat, he replied, “How could that be bad?” It can’t, and it isn’t—it’s delicious!

Without giving him too much credit, it’s true that this combination can’t miss. Ina has a knack for combining ingredients in a simple yet incredibly impactful way. Tomatoes and pesto are a pretty classic pairing, but her method for marrying the ingredients together elevates the combination from basic to Barefoot Contessa-worthy. 

What I Love About Ina’s Roasted Tomatoes With Pesto

I can’t think of another four-ingredient appetizer with as much flavor as this dish. Like many of my favorite tomato recipes from Ina, the secret is in the roast. It concentrates the flavors and accentuates the inherent umami notes in the tomatoes.

Before the tomatoes head to the oven, they are generously seasoned with olive oil (make sure it’s good olive oil!), salt, pepper, and dried oregano. I love the earthiness and pleasantly astringent nature of dried oregano, but this recipe calls for a full two teaspoons, so if that is not exactly your cup of tea, I would suggest using it to taste or swapping it with an herb blend like Italian seasoning. 

For the pesto, I had an abundance of basil on hand the first time I made these, so I opted to make my pesto from scratch. That said, I’ve since duplicated my initial success while using a store-bought pesto, so feel free to use either option.

Although it’s not strictly authentic, I rarely use pine nuts in my homemade pesto. I love the flavor of pine nuts, but the price is very unpalatable. Ina’s pesto calls for a combination of walnuts and pine nuts, but I used pumpkin seeds instead. Anything that adds nuttiness and richness, in my opinion, works here.

If you follow Ina’s recipe, you’ll end up with much more pesto than you need for the roasted tomatoes, which is always good. Leftovers can be used to make sandwiches, scrambled eggs, or to marinate protein. I like to freeze extra pesto in ice cube trays so I can pop out a block of bright, herbaceous flavor as needed.

Last but not least, the Parmesan cheese. Not only does this add even more depth of flavor to the already super savory dish, but it also nicely binds everything together. While delicious, juicy tomatoes paired with oily pesto do not make a neat and tidy dish. The cheese helps to glue everything together to make this an easy-to-serve appetizer.