It’s been quite a while since we last published a frittata recipe. Five years to be exact. I’m not sure why. A frittata is just the kind of carefree, quick and easy dish we like to feature around here, especially this time of year when the weather is at its hottest and our urge to cook is at its lowest. But after a long hiatus, we’re pleased to share this delightful frittata al pomodoro (Tomato Frittata) recipe with you.
And as we’ve mentioned before, a bit like pasta and risotto, you can make a frittata with just about any flavorings you can imagine. In the summer, a frittata al pomodoro, filled with tomatoes and basil—especially if they’re fresh from your garden or local farmers market—is a marvelous choice. You can add bits of mozzarella if you like, in which case you have a kind of caprese frittata or perhaps a margherita pizza without the dough?
You can whip up a frittata di pomodoro at the spur of the moment for a quick weekend dinner. If you cut it into little squares, you’ll have a fine antipasto, or finger food for cocktails, a picnic or cookout. Leftovers are equally delicious in a sandwich made with a crusty bread. And since it’s just as delicious at room temperature—even better in fact if you ask me—it’s an ideal make ahead dish. Not bad for 20 minutes’ work.
Ingredients
Serves 3-4 as a secondo, 8 as an antipasto/starter
- 6-8 eggs, depending on their size and appetites
- 4 smallish tomatoes (about 200-250g/7-8 oz total), cut into wedges, or 200g (7 oz) cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
- A handful of fresh basil leaves, to taste
- 25g (1 oz) freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano or pecorino cheese, or more to taste
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
Optional:
- 50g (2 oz) mozzarella, cut into cubes, or more to taste
Directions
In a medium sized skillet, sauté the garlic very gently in olive oil until it is just beginning to brown around the edges. Remove the garlic.
Raise the heat and add the tomato wedges. Sauté the tomatoes over a lively flame, tossing from time to time, until they have begun to soften and any excess liquid has evaporated. The tomatoes may caramelize some around the edges, which is fine.
Transfer the tomatoes to a plate and let them cool for a few minutes.
Meanwhile beat the eggs well with the grated cheese and a good pinch of salt and good grinding of black pepper. Fold in the basil leaves and the now tepid tomatoes, along with any juices they may have exuded, and if using the mozzarella cubes.
Heat more olive oil in a 23cm/9 inch skillet. When hot, pour the egg mixture into the skillet. Stir the eggs to distribute the filling ingredients evenly. Lift the eggs to let some of the uncooked eggs flow into the bottom.
Lower the flame and cover the skillet. Following the instructions in our post on How to Make a Frittata, proceed to cook the eggs on one side and then the other over a gentle flame.
Set on a serving platter to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
A frittata al pomodoro is one of the easiest kinds of dishes to make in the Italian repertoire. There is one tricky bit, however, which is flipping it over to cook the other side. As mentioned in the How to Make a Frittata post, there are various way to go about this. These days, I favor just running the top under the broiler of my toaster-oven. It’s stupidly simple.
The other trick, if you will, is to cook the frittata over fairly gentle heat. If you flame is too high you risk browning the outside before the egg has time to set inside. Some (including Marcella Hazan) say that high heat toughens the eggs, though personally I haven’t found this to be the case.
Finally, you want to make sure the frittata doesn’t come out soggy. For that, you want nicely meaty tomatoes. And the initial sauté of the tomatoes help, too. This recipe works equally well with smallish regular tomatoes—plum tomatoes are a good choice here—cut into wedges, or cherry or grape tomatoes. If using regular tomatoes, you can peel them if you like. Just parboil them very briefly (30 seconds max) to loosen their skins. After that it’s short work to peel them with a knife. Personally, I don’t bother. I’d avoid very large beefsteak type tomatoes for this dish.
Variations
In many recipes, the initial soffritto for a frittata al pomodoro is made with onions rather than garlic. Others call for oregano or parsley rather than fresh basil. As mentioned, the mozzarella is optional, and you can sub out other meltable cheeses if you like.
The treatment of the main filing ingredient can vary from recipe to recipe. In many modern recipes, especially those using grape or cherry tomatoes, you skip the initial sautéing of the tomatoes and just add raw tomatoes to the egg mixture. They do cook some, of course, along with the eggs. But personally I rather prefer the softer texture and more intense tomato flavor the sauté provides. The brief sauté also eliminates excess liquid that might make your frittata soggy.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jeanne Caròla Francesconi has an old timey recipe for frittata al pomodoro in her classic cookbook, La cucina napoletana, where the tomatoes aren’t just lightly sautéed but cooked down into an actual tomato sauce, which is mixed with the eggs and cheese.
If you’re a lover of hefty foods, Francesconi also has a recipe taken from early 19th century Neapolitan gastronome Ippolito Cavalcanti. The filling is enriched with bits of stale bread, soaked in milk and squeezed dry, together with cubes of Neapolitan salami and smoked scamorza cheese. An interesting choice if you want something more substantial, though I’d reckon this recipe is a bit heavy for most of us moderns.
Baking your frittata
If you’re willing to turn on your oven, you can also make your frittata al pomodoro in the oven. Just pour all the ingredients into a well greased baking dish. Bake in a hot (200C/400F) oven until set and brown on top, about 15-20 minutes. This is particularly nice if you want to cut the resulting square or rectangular frittata into little squares as a kind of finger food, as we see in this post.
Frittata al pomodoro
Ingredients
- 6-8 eggs depending on their size and appetites
- 4 smallish tomatoes about 200-250g/7-8 oz total, cut into wedges, or 200g (7 oz) cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
- A handful of fresh basil leaves to taste
- 25 g 1 oz freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano or pecorino cheese, or more to taste
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
Optional
- 50 g 2 oz mozzarella cut into cubes, or more to taste
Instructions
- In a medium sized skillet, sauté the garlic very gently in olive oil until it is just beginning to brown around the edges. Remove the garlic.
- Raise the heat and add the tomato wedges. Sauté the tomatoes over a lively flame, tossing from time to time, until they have begun to soften and any excess liquid has evaporated. The tomatoes may caramelize some around the edges, which is fine.
- Transfer the tomatoes to a plate and let them cool for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile beat the eggs well with the grated cheese and a good pinch of salt and good grinding of black pepper. Fold in the basil leaves and the now tepid tomatoes, along with any juices they may have exuded, and if using the mozzarella cubes.
- Heat more olive oil in a 23cm/9 inch skillet. When hot, pour the egg mixture into the skillet. Stir the eggs to distribute the filling ingredients evenly. Lift the eggs to let some of the uncooked eggs flow into the bottom.
- Lower the flame and cover the skillet. Following the instructions in our post on How to Make a Frittata, proceed to cook the eggs on one side and then the other over a gentle flame.
- Set on a serving platter to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.
31 Comments on “Frittata al pomodoro (Tomato Frittata)”
A perfect light summer dish. Love the simplicity and all the variations. Beautiful.
Thanks so much, Velva!
What a great frittata recipe. I just made one for my niece and her family visiting from Germany. Everyone liked it.
Doesn’t surprise me, Gerlinde. Frittatas are real crowd pleasers.
I love a frittata! I often make them using up leftover rice and veg. Delicious! I’d have to leave out the tomatoes tho. And i bake mine in the oven. Such a great recipe for a quick dinner.
cheers
sherry
Frittatas are the best. 🙂 Thanks for stopping by, Sherry.
Oooo I love frittata, but I just realized I hadn’t made any in years (well, in two or three years, but that sounds a lot!) Loving this summer version with tomatoes and basil!
I hope you try it, Ben. It’s a winner.
We have extra cherry tomatoes coming out of the garden daily, and we’ve been trying to figure out how to use ’em up. A frittata is a great idea!
Agreed! Enjoy. 🙂
ah Frank, I love every flavor of frittata with a passion, for me it’s such a strong memory of childhood dinners. My mum did masterfully flip it using a lid, but I like to make it a little more liquid adding a dash of milk to the eggs. Then I cook it all the way covered over very low heat. It cooks perfectly on both sides and it becomes soft and puffy. I am making this beautiful tomato version in the next couple of days, grazie mille!
I’ve tried flipping with a lid. Alas it did not turn out so well, lol! Anyway, next time I’m going to try your method. Sounds very nice … and easy!
I was curious after you mentioned how long it had been since you last posted a frittata recipe. I look back and it’s been 10 years for me. I definitely have to get on board and try your recipe, it looks good.
ummm yumm, that was very good. I had fresh duck eggs.
Nice!
Beautiful. I love the tomatoes in the frittata!!!
Thanks, Mimi. I totally agree.
Lovely frittata recipe! I’ve been making them for lunch/antipasto/supper, recently. At the moment I’m obsessed with using ricotta, whisking in 4 eggs and adding herbs (especially mint). So good for these scorching Italian summer days.
A ricotta frittata is a lovely thing, too, Susie!
I totally love frittata! This is such a beautiful and delicious summer version.
Thanks so much, Angie
I’ve never used tomatoes in a frittata but it sounds delicious! My garden is producing many now, so I will make this soon.
Hope you enjoy it, Barb!
Another great recipe. I often make frittatas to use up what’s left in the fridge on a Sunday lunchtime and normally add grated tomato, but it is possible, as David (or Marc) suggests, that the frittata predates the arrival of tomatoes in the West. It’s likely that a fried egg cake, a Kuku, came to Europe from the Levant and is the origin of Spanish tortillas and Italian frittatas… I wish I could go back in time to find out!
Italians have a name for that kind of dish: “svuotafrigo”, literally “clean out the fridge” dishes. So apt, and frittatas really are the quintessential svuatafrigo dish. Interesting about kuku. Never knew that, will have to look more into it.
It’s great to see a frittata recipe on the blog again after such a long break! This frittata al pomodoro sounds like a perfect summer dish, especially with those fresh tomatoes and basil. I love how versatile it is, whether you’re whipping it up for a quick dinner or serving it as finger food for a picnic. Like Christina I never tried one with tomatoes before so I will definitely give this a shot to fix that.
Hope you like it, Raymund!
Never tried one with tomatoes, but would be delicious, I’m sure! But I have to say, a frittata made in the oven is no longer a frittata–haha! A fornata? 🙂 Have a good weekend, Frank!
Thanks, Christina! Good weekend to you, too!
Sounds wonderful, Frank. Marc always says that tomatoes don’t belong in frittatas, but I disagree, and you have proven him wrong! We really rely on frittatas a lot for easy summer cooking. It’s a use up all the vegetables that I get at the farmers market. N
The trick is to choose nice meaty tomatoes (some can be quite watery) and cook the tomatoes down a bit, so they don’t make the frittata soggy. But with a little care it’s quite delicious.