Garlic and Tomato rubbed crostini is a really easy and very flavorful way to make a crostini. Crostini is a charred bread usually brushed with olive oil before charring or grilling and then topped with salt and sometimes topped with other flavors like this recipe with tomato and garlic.
I love crostini and you may have seen this mentioned on other recipe posts of mine. Crostini makes for a great base for a light lunch or appetizer and it also makes an amazing side to main courses that have sauces that you want to scoop up.
This tomato and garlic version of crostini is an old Italian way of making crostini and it is very simple. After grilling or charring your bread, you just take a garlic clove and rub that over the warm bread. Next you rub a tomato half over the warm bread to release the juices of the tomato and impart its flavor on the crostini.
There are only a few ingredients to this recipe:
- Good baguette or ciabatta bread
- olive oil
- garlic
- tomato
- salt
As I mentioned above, this crostini is very versatile. It is essentially the base to many of your dishes. I have many different versions of crostini like my oregano crostini which I use with almost all my red sauce recipes.
My favorite ways to use this crostini:
- A side to pasta dishes with sauce that needs to scooped up.
- As a base for toppings like prosciutto, cheese, etc.
- To serve along side your favorite Italian soup like this Kale and Farro Minestrone.
- Just to eat on it’s own!
When making this crostini the recipe calls for rubbing the garlic and tomato over top after the bread is done being grilled. The purpose to this method is you are using the heat and roughness of the the bread after toasting to help release the juices from the garlic and tomato.
Don’t worry about the addition of the tomato making the bread soft, it will just impart its flavor and some color. To finish it all off, a light sprinkle of good kosher or sea salt is great to really bring out those flavors.
Tomato and Garlic Rubbed Crostini
A delicious and easy rustic grilled bread with garlic and tomato flavor.
Ingredients
- 1 loaf of good baguette or ciabatta bread
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 ripe tomato cut in half
- olive oil for topping bread, about 1/4 cup
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Pre heat your broiler to high
- Next slice up your baguette or ciabatta into 1/2 inch slices.
- Place the sliced bread on a large sheet pan.
- Drizzle or brush your olive oil on to the tops of the bread.
- Place under the broiler until the tops start to turn a golden brown.
- Remove the sheet pan from the under the broiler and flip the bread over to toast the other side.
- Once the second side turns a nice golden color remove the bread from the oven and place your hot sheet pan on a protected surface.
- Flip the toasted crostini back over with the olive oil side facing up.
- Take your clove of garlic and begin rubbing the garlic back and forth on each piece of bread while the bread is hot to release the garlic flavor.
- Next, take your 1/2 of your tomato and begin rubbing that on the tops of the bread in the same fashion as the garlic, again to release the tomato flavor on to the bread.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt.
- Serve immediately.
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