Quick Puff Pastry Tomato Tart
on May 23, 2024
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This 30-minute puff pastry tomato tart is no fuss, but colorful, tasty, and impressive. All you need is store-bought puff pastry, creamy ricotta cheese, pesto, and a few other simple ingredients. Add prosciutto for a delicious extra burst of flavor.
Reasons to love it
If you’ve never made a puff pastry savory tart, you’re missing out on one of life’s easy entertaining secrets.
As well as being cute, they’re:
- super quick and easy to make. And virtually impossible to mess up. Along with an ‘impossible’ quiche, they’re my favorite choice for a simple but impressive brunch or lunch for guests.
- made with store-bought puff pastry. So convenient!
- a crowd pleaser. The mixture of creamy, subtly lemony ricotta, juicy tomatoes, fragrant pesto and tasty prosciutto is a winner with most people.
- quite versatile. Serve squares of puff pastry tomato tart as an easy appetizer, pack them cold in lunch boxes, or serve them as a simple meal for yourselves or guests.
- easy to vary depending on what you have or what you like. Don’t have ricotta? Just spread with cream cheese or pesto. Vegetarian? Just leave off the prosciutto!
About the ingredients
You’ll find a full list of ingredients with amounts in the recipe card below. But here’s a summary of what you need to know.
The secret to the success of this tomato puff pastry tart is just a few very fresh, very basic, but very tasty ingredients.
Puff pastry: Use a sheet of frozen (or fresh – it doesn’t matter!) store-bought puff pastry. If available, I recommend pastry made with butter.
Ricotta cheese: I usually get ‘smooth’ ricotta cheese, but really any type of ricotta that’s spreadable will be fine. It’s usually in a tub in the cheese aisle.
If you can’t find ricotta, it’s possible to use cream cheese or even a soft, creamy feta cheese instead.
Lemon zest: To stir into the ricotta for a subtle lemony flavor.
Salt and pepper: To season the ricotta cheese. Personally, I don’t go overboard on the salt, since the prosciutto is already quite salty, but I like plenty of pepper.
Pesto: Either regular or tomato pesto works very well (choose nut free if necessary).
Cherry tomatoes: Or any small tomatoes. I like the multi-colored ones, sometimes called heirloom tomatoes or rainbow tomatoes.
You can even use sundried tomatoes instead of fresh, but add them at the same time as the prosciutto – otherwise they’ll burn.
Prosciutto: This is Italian dry-cured ham. It’s rich, delicate and very tasty. Good substitutes would be serrano ham, which is the Spanish equivalent, or even a good quality regular ham.
Or you can easily make the tart vegetarian by just skipping the meat altogether.
Olive oil: I like to drizzle just a little over the prosciutto and the rest of the tomato tart for extra moisture and flavor while it finishes cooking.
Fresh basil: This is the cherry on the cake, as much for the way it looks as for the fresh flavor! We all know tomatoes and basil are a match made in heaven, but if you don’t have it, feel free to use parsley or another fresh herb instead.
So that’s just 7 ingredients, if you don’t count the olive oil and salt and pepper 😉
Got leftover ricotta? Use it to make this delicious 20-minute prosciutto pasta! How about pesto? Make 15-minute stove top chicken with pesto parmesan sauce or this amazing Italian toasted veggie sandwich.
How to make a puff pastry tomato tart
Firstly, pre-heat the oven. Then lay the pastry on a lined baking sheet.
Score a border around the edges with a knife and bake for 5 to 10 minutes, until the pastry is part-baked and it’s started to ‘puff up’.
Then push down the part inside the area you scored with the back of a spoon! It may not be as puffed up as in the photo below, which is fine.
Like this …
Then spread the mixture of ricotta and lemon zest over the middle part of the pastry that you’ve pushed down.
Spoon the pesto evenly on top, and scatter over the halved tomatoes.
Then bake for another 10 minutes.
Finally, add the prosciutto and drizzle over a little olive oil. Bake for a final 5 minutes.
The final touch is to scatter over fresh basil and drizzle over more extra virgin olive oil, if you like. Look how beautiful it is!
Helen’s Top Tips
- Use chilled pastry. Defrost the pastry sheet in the fridge, if using frozen, to keep it cool. If the pastry gets too warm, it can stop it from ‘puffing up’ as much.
- Just lightly score the pastry. Be careful not to score all the way through.
- Cover leftovers and store in the fridge for up to a day. Reheat for 8 to 10 minutes at 180C/350F in the oven or around half that time in an air fryer until hot again. Or enjoy cold (works great in lunch boxes!).
Serving ideas
For a light brunch or lunch, serve up to 4 people with a salad of your choice. Greek lettuce salad (maroulosalata) is a good choice since it’s fresh, simple and tasty.
To serve as part of a bigger meal, I would add diced potatoes or cold Greek potato salad with its delicious herby lemon dressing. The cherry on top would be a serving of this 5-minute Greek yogurt dip.
You can even serve a savory puff pastry tart such as this as an appetizer or side dish.
Recipe FAQs
It’s best to assemble and bake the tart just before serving, but to get ahead I suggest preparing all the ingredients and storing them in the fridge. You can prepare the ricotta mixture, for example, wash the basil, and chop the tomatoes.
I find it really is best to pre-bake the crust for 5 to 10 minutes before adding the toppings. It just makes sure the pastry is properly cooked through by the time everything else is cooked, and doesn’t get soggy.
Yes, of course, although it’s best to stick to either quick-cooking vegetables or use ready-cooked. For example, you could add cooked roasted vegetables, chopped asparagus (no need to pre-cook this), cooked mushrooms, caramelized onions, and even leftover cooked meats that can stand 10 minutes in the oven, such as chorizo or leftover sausage.
More puff pastry recipes
- This creamy chicken leek pie is a lighter version of a comfort food classic. Everyone will love it!
- Supermarket copycat pesto and cheese twists – so easy, and perfect for afternoon snacks.
- Asparagus brunch tart with parmesan and basil. Weekend brunch, anyone?
- Sundried tomato, parmesan and rosemary palmiers. Party food central!
- Pear, feta and walnut puff pastry tarts (this one is a bit of a wildcard recipe, but some readers love it!)
Quick Puff Pastry Tomato Tart
Ingredients
- 1 sheet puff pastry, de-frosted if frozen, but still chilled
- ⅔ cup ricotta cheese
- 1 lemon, zest only
- salt & pepper, to taste
- 3 tbsp pesto,
- 7 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved
- 2 ounces prosciutto, (or serrano ham) torn into pieces
- fresh basil
- 1 tbsp olive oil, for drizzling
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 390F/200C.
- Place the pastry on a large baking tray lined with baking paper. Score all around the edge with a knife, leaving a border of about 1.5 cm (make sure you don’t cut all the way through the pastry).1 sheet puff pastry
- Combine the ricotta cheese with the lemon zest and a little freshly ground salt and pepper in a small bowl. Put aside.⅔ cup ricotta cheese, 1 lemon, salt & pepper
- Bake the pastry for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the pastry has started to brown and puff up. Then remove from the oven and push the centre of the tart down with the back of a spoon (leave the rim of the tart puffed up).
- Now spread the ricotta mixture over the tart, then add small spoonfuls of pesto and the tomatoes (cut side up is nice).3 tbsp pesto, 7 ounces cherry tomatoes
- Bake for another 10 minutes, then add the prosciutto. Drizzle over a little olive oil and cook for another 5 minutes until the tart is golden and puffy and the edges of the meat have started to crisp.2 ounces prosciutto, 1 tbsp olive oil
- Finally, sprinkle the finished tart with fresh basil leaves and drizzle with a little extra olive oil, if you like. Serve when hot or at room temperature.fresh basil
Notes
- Use cream cheese instead of ricotta cheese.
- Use ordinary ham instead of prosciutto.
- Use sundried tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes (but don’t add them until the last 5 minutes or they’ll burn).
- Add leftover cooked chopped sausage, roasted vegetables, raw chopped asparagus, or cooked mushrooms and/or caramelized onions for a tasty variation.
