Sublime and simple Pan Con Tomate has just five ingredients; toasted rustic bread rubbed with a garlic clove, juicy fresh tomato pulp, extra-virgin olive oil, and coarse flaky sea salt. Also known as Spanish Tomato Bread, Pan Tumaca, or Pa Amb Tomàquet, this easy recipe using simple ingredients is equally at home served at a dinner party with a Spanish omelette or as part of a traditional Spanish breakfast.
Pan con tomate is available at almost any tapas bar when good quality fresh ripe tomatoes are at their peak and for good reason. All it takes is a handful of fresh ingredients to make this all-star of Spanish cuisine.
This standout of Catalan cuisine is now a classic Spanish tapas offering that you can nosh on at home whenever the fancy strikes. With just a handful of high quality ingredients, this is what your summer table needs.
Grab your juicy tomatoes, good olive oil, a little salt, a rustic loaf of baguette or other crusty bread, and let’s get our tapas on. As they’d say in Cataluña: Anem!
Pa Amb Tomàquet
Whether you call it Pa Amb Tomàquet, Pan Con Tomate, Pan Tumaca, or something else entirely depends largely on where you encounter the dish for the first time. It is pretty generally agreed that the dish originate in the rural Catalan Countries as a way to use up generous tomato harvests.
In addition to helping use up the superabundance of summer tomatoes, pa amb tomaquet might be the most delicious way ever invented to use up slightly stale bread. There are almost as many different ways to make this Spanish recipe as there are opinions about the best way to do it, so let’s break down the options a bit.
Pan Con Tomate Recipe
In it’s most basic form, pan con tomate is made by serving sliced day old bread that is either toasted or just warmed. A peeled clove of garlic is rubbed over the warm bread or toast, then a halved fresh tomato is rubbed and squeezed over the bread at the table. It’s then drizzled with good extra virgin olive oil and kissed with a little flaky salt.
Bread for Pan Con Tomate
You can use about any rustic country style loaf you have on hand, whether it’s sourdough, baguette, ciabatta, crusty Italian bread, or something else of the sort. It’s important to slice your bread thickly; don’t get stingy with the size of your bread slices here.
I prefer a traditional or sourdough baguette halved lengthwise and cut into easy-to-pick-up lengths for my version of pa amb tomàquet. I pop my sliced bread onto a rimmed baking sheet and slide it under the broiler for 2 to 4 minutes, or until they’re toasted to deep golden brown perfection.
After your bread is toasted, you just rub a raw garlic clove over the toasted surface. The rough toasted surface will be abrasive enough to act like sandpaper as your rub the garlic clove and will take on just enough garlic to be delicious. You’ll be able to see the peeled garlic clove get smaller as you rub it over the toasted pieces of bread.
I’d advise against using sandwich bread for pan con tomate because it’s just too soft and moist to soak up the tomato juices and olive oil you’ll be spooning over it. Sandwich bread will simply fold over on itself if you try to lift it with the tomato pulp on it.
The Best Tomatoes for Pan Tumaca
Speaking of tomatoes, there’s no special variety of tomato that is more suitable for pan con tomate than others. You can even use a mixture of perfectly ripe and slightly overripe tomatoes for the ultimate in juicy tomato heaven.
While the most traditional iteration of pan tumaca rubs halved good tomatoes directly on the bread, I prefer more tomato pulp. I grab a tomato by the stem end and run it over the large holes of a box grater until the flesh has been reduced to pulp and the skin is left.
At this point, taste your tomatoes. If they’re perfectly ripe and taste like everything a tomato should taste like, you’re good to move on to the next step. If the tomato flavour is a little anemic, you can stir in a small splash of sherry vinegar to amp it up.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Flaky Sea Salt
You’ll be spooning this over your garlic bread bases and drizzling generous amounts of good extra virgin olive oil over it. Because there are only a handful of ingredients, you want to get as good an extra virgin olive oil as you can.
I’m partial to this brand of olive oil, but you can use what you love! It’s hard to go wrong if you choose a cold press extra virgin olive oil.
While we’re discussing things I love, I need to recommend my favourite salt: Maldon Sea Salt. These crunchy-but-somehow-soft coarse flakes are as beautiful to look at as they taste.
Maldon Sea Salt isn’t just pretty though, it’s intensely fresh and clean tasting. If you don’t have Maldon, though, you can definitely use a coarse kosher salt or other coarse sea salt.
Hit the tomato pulp topped garlic toast with salt of your choice and you’re all set! If you’re so inclined a little fresh parsley or oregano over the top makes things extra special.
Now you can stop there with your tomato toast, or you can get all kinds of crazy and top with anchovy fillets, slices of manchego cheese or blue cheese crumbles, jamón serrano (Spanish ham), or Spanish olives. The only thing left to heighten your enjoyment of this utterly perfect dish is to pour a nice glass of your favourite wine and sit out on the porch to eat it!
Pan Con Tomate
Here’s a quick summary of your keys to the ultimate Pan Con Tomate experience. Open your bottle of wine while the bread is toasting under the broiler!
- Choose a crusty bread. Slice it thickly (at least 1-inch thick). Toast it dry under the broiler until deep golden brown.
- Rub a peeled garlic clove gently over the surface of the warm toasted bread.
- Grate super ripe tomatoes over the coarse holes on a box grater positioned over a bowl.
- Spoon the tomato pulp over your garlic toast just a couple of minutes before serving. You want to give the tomato juice a moment to soak in, but not so long as to make your bread soggy.
- Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse flaky salt right before serving.
Pan Con Tomate
Rate RecipeEquipment
- sheet pan
- bread knife
- box grater
Ingredients
- 1 loaf baguette ciabatta, rustic Italian bread, etc…
- 2 cloves of garlic peeled but whole
- 2 large fresh tomatoes
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Coarse flaky sea salt to taste
Optional:
- torn fresh parsley or oregano
- Serrano ham
- anchovy filets
- bleu cheese crumbles or manchego cheese slices
Instructions
- Choose a crusty bread. Slice it thickly (at least 1-inch thick). Toast it dry under the broiler until deep golden brown.
- Rub a peeled garlic clove gently over the surface of the warm toasted bread.
- Grate super ripe tomatoes over the coarse holes on a box grater positioned over a bowl.
- Spoon the tomato pulp over your garlic toast just a couple of minutes before serving. You want to give the tomato juice a moment to soak in, but not so long as to make your bread soggy.
- Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse flaky salt right before serving.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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