This Tomato Tart Seems Fancy however Could not Be Simpler

August 20, 2025

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Why It Works

Cooking the tomatoes in butter earlier than inserting them within the tart reduces their juices, stopping a soggy crust.
Including a little bit sugar to the butter varieties a caramel that glazes the tomatoes and intensifies their sweetness.

Late summer time delivers tomatoes at their most superb—sun-warmed, bursting with juice, and piled excessive on the farmers market in colours starting from golden yellow to purple-black. Minimize into one and also you get that unmistakable rush of juice, candy but tart, the essence of the season captured in a single chunk. It is the form of bounty that makes you need to have fun tomatoes in each means potential—layered into sandwiches, tossed into salads, simmered into sauces, and, on this case, remodeled right into a shimmering upside-down tart.

Calling this recipe a tarte tatin might sound stunning at first. The standard French tarte tatin is an upside-down apple tart during which fruit is caramelized in butter and sugar earlier than being topped with pastry and baked, then inverted for serving. Right here, cherry tomatoes take the starring function: They’re organized over a mix of butter and sugar, topped with a spherical of pastry, after which baked till the pastry is crispy, the butter combination is caramelized, and the tomatoes are nearly impossibly candy. The tart is then turned out onto a plate to disclose a shiny, jewel-toned crown. As with our French onion soup tarte tatin, the strategy borrows immediately from the unique, however the result’s extra savory relatively than candy, with tomatoes providing the identical shiny, juicy distinction that apples present within the dessert model.

This tomato tarte tatin involves us from my colleague Melissa Grey-Streett in our Birmingham, Alabama, take a look at kitchen, the place it shortly turned a employees favourite. Her onion and tomato cooking methods are what make this tart particular and what reserve it from the widespread pitfall of a soggy crust usually related to tomato tarts. It begins with onions, slowly cooked in butter till they collapse right into a tangle of golden sweetness. A splash of dry sherry deglazes the pan, lifting the browned bits and including a briny word that sharpens the richness. Inventory is stirred in and simmered down till it clings to the onions, decreasing to a shiny, savory jam that turns into the tart’s spine.

Then, in an oven-safe skillet, butter, sugar, salt, and pepper are unfold throughout the underside earlier than a layer of cherry tomatoes is nestled in on high. Because the skillet heats, the butter and sugar bubble into caramel across the tomatoes, softening their skins and concentrating their juices till they glisten in a deep amber glaze. The jammy onions are spooned into the areas between the tomatoes, weaving in sweetness and physique. A swipe of mustard throughout the dough provides a spicy, nose-tingling edge, whereas nutty, umami-rich Gruyère melts into ribbons, anchoring the tart in opposition to all that sweetness and brightness.

Critical Eats / Robby Lozano

By the point the pastry is laid over all the pieces, the filling is already lush and concentrated, removed from the watery chaos uncooked tomatoes would carry. As soon as baked, the crust emerges crisp, golden, and buttery—sturdy sufficient to carry the juicy filling but delicate sufficient to shatter beneath your fork. Serve the tart heat, whereas the crust is crisp and the tomatoes gleam of their caramel. With each slice you get buttery pastry, jammy onions, and juicy, sweet-savory tomatoes—a reminder to savor tomato season to the final chunk.

This recipe was developed by Melissa Grey-Streett; the headnote was written by Laila Ibrahim.