Name: Bruschetta with Tomatoes and Olives Recipe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 8 Roma tomatoes; 4 tbsp green olives; ½ tsp salt; ¼ tsp ground black pepper; 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil; 1 tbsp fresh basil; 1 garlic clove ((optional)); 1 baguette; Balsamic glaze

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This bruschetta with tomatoes and olives is the perfect starter or party appetizer. It’s fresh, salty and deliciously light.

Bruschetta with tomatoes and olives is the perfect appetizer for your next dinner party or a great starter for your family dinner. It has a mildly sweet flavour from the tomatoes and a bit of saltiness thanks to the olives.

It’s almost a mix between the common tomato bruschetta and olive tapenade.

Bruschetta is a classic appetizer but what most people don’t know is that bruschetta refers to the toasted bread, whereas the tomato and olive topping, in our case, is just that, a topping.

In North America Bruschetta usually refers to the whole dish, the toasted bread and some sort of tomatoes on top. Now that you know that’s not the case, don’t be surprised to see bruschetta recipes that don’t include tomatoes at all.

Another reason I love this dish is that it’s a great way for me to use up our garden tomatoes. It really is another garden-to-table recipe for me since the basil is also from our herb box.

Preparing Bruschetta with Tomatoes and Olives

Ingredients

Roma tomatoes: Tomatoes are actually a fruit, despite most people believing them to be vegetables. Roma tomatoes are plum tomatoes and are commonly used for making sauces and for canning because they don’t have many seeds. They have an elongated shape and are a deep red when fully ripe.

Green olives: Green olives are unripe black olives that are simply picked early. They are soaked in lye before they are brined giving them their distinct flavour.

Olive oil: I use olive oil for this recipe because of its mild flavour. Olive oil is the fat extracted from olives. The least processed is extra virgin olive oil, which I use in this recipe.

Basil: Basil, also called sweet basil, is an annual herb that is grown for its fragrant leaves. It is part of the mint family and is native to Asia. It is used in cooking all over the world for its slightly sweet and very distinct flavour.

Garlic: Garlic is a bulb that is edible and is grown in soil. Though the green shoots it sprouts, called garlic scapes, are also edible, we are referring to the actual bulb that the scapes grow from. Garlic bulbs are made up of multiple cloves and depending on the variety you may have anywhere from 4 to 10 cloves, if not more.

Baguette: A baguette is a French bread that is very long, thin and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

How to Make Bruschetta with Tomatoes and Olives

There are a few ways that you can toast the baguette. You can use a toaster, grill them or put them in the oven. I have opted to use the oven so start by preheating the oven to 400°F.

While the oven is preheating, chop the tomatoes. Since we are using Roma tomatoes, which have fewer seeds, we don’t have to worry as much about

deseeding them to reduce the amount of juice in the bruschetta.

If, however, you want to minimize the juices even further feel free to remove the seeds.

Dice the tomatoes into pieces no bigger than ¼ inch and add them to a medium bowl.

The oven is likely heated by now. Slice the baguette on the bias and lay the slices on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Put it in the oven for 5 minutes, then flip each slice and bake for another 3-4 minutes.

Chop the olives and add them to the bowl. The purpose of the olives is to make that distinct salty flavour a part of the dish not to stand out on their own. As such, I recommend that you finely chop them making sure they are well distributed throughout the topping.

Lastly, chop the basil and add it to the bowl as well.

Now that we have all the ingredients prepped we can finally, add the salt, pepper and oil to the bowl.

Stir everything together making sure to crush the tomatoes. Mixing gently is really important here.

This next step is optional. It does add a mild flavour but skipping it won’t ruin the dish by any means.

Peel a garlic clove and slice it in half lengthwise. We are going to use the garlic to give a hint of flavour to the toasted bread, or the bruschetta.

To do this, rub each slice of baguette with the cut side of the garlic clove. Then spoon some tomato and olive topping onto each slice.

As a final touch, you can drizzle it with balsamic glaze and serve.

Substitutions

Roma tomatoes: You can use another tomato variety to make this bruschetta with tomatoes and olives. What you want to be cautious about is the seeds and juice in other varieties. Roma tomatoes are known to have fewer seeds so using another variety may warrant you removing the seeds before dicing the tomatoes.

Baguette: The baguette is my favourite choice for bruschetta but a nice fresh ciabatta also makes excellent crunchy yet airy toast.

Serving Bruschetta

When serving this dish as a dinner appetizer you can top the bruschetta with the tomatoes and olives, drizzle with balsamic glaze and serve.

If, however, you are serving this dish as a party snack or it will not be consumed right away, I recommend you serve the tomato and olive mixture separately beside the toasted bread and balsamic glaze. This way the toast is guaranteed to stay crispy!

There is another way that I wouldn’t have thought to serve this dish. I don’t know how your kids feel about tomatoes, but my three-year-old ate this up like a salad on the side of the pasta and didn’t even need the toast.

Let us know in the comments if you have any questions. And if you like this recipe be sure to leave us a five-star rating below.

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