How to Make Herb Stuffed Tomatoes

This delicious recipe make a great side dish to steak or chicken, and can even become a meal on its own. The herb stuffed tomato is on the top of my list of favorite gourmet dinner treats.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• 4 tomatoes
• 3/4 cup of bread crumbs
• 1 cup of grated cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon of pepper
• 1 teaspoon of softened butter
• 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil
• dried parsley
• garlic powder
• white wine cooking wine (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cut each tomato in half, horizontally. Using a spoon, scrape out the inside pulp of each tomato and reserve the pulp in a large mixing bowl. Be careful when scraping not to puncture the outside of the tomato and create a hole.
2. While still in the bowl, quickly chop up the reserved pulp. Add parsley, bread crumbs, grated cheese, pepper, a pinch of garlic powder, and a few splashes of white wine cooking wine, and mix.
3. Place each tomato in a buttered casserole dish and fill with the bread crumb mixture. Drizzle the top of each tomato with oil. Bake about 20 minutes until the tops of each tomato become browned. Serve.

Tips & Warnings

• For extra flavor, you can top each tomato with shredded mozzarella and bake until mozzarella is melted.
• For a more quick version, you can use a can of plain diced tomatoes mixed with the seasonings and stuffing mix and fill each tomato.
• Other than your tastebuds, your eyesight is your best cooking tool. Go by what you see, if the mixture seems too wet use more bread crumbs until it becomes wet, yet pasty. The mix should have the appearance of a moist boxed stuffing mix.
• If your tomatoes will not sit upright in the casserole dish, slice a very small piece off the bottom of each tomato so that the bottoms sit flat. However try your best not to cut too deep as to put a hole in the bottom of each tomato.
• Be careful when scraping out the sides of the tomatoes, not to puncture the bottom or sides of the tomatoes.
• Do not peel the skin off the tomatoes, the skin is supposed to stay on for this dish.
• Try to use the tomatoes for this dish when they are ripe and soft. A tomato that is not fully ripened will have very tough and hard pulp.