For Cherry Tomatoes With 10X The Flavor, Cook Them French-Style

Rich yet simple, tomato confit has gone viral on TikTok. Although centuries before that, foodies around the world were confiting their tomatoes — and the technique is even more flavorful when you use cherry tomatoes. Home cooks might be familiar with the term used in reference to duck confit, a traditional French dish. But confit refers to a cooking technique rather than a specific ingredient. 

A pre-refrigeration culinary technique, the term comes from the French word confire, which means to preserve. To confit, food is slowly cooked while submerged in a layer of oil or fat, and sometimes a layer of fresh aromatics to infuse flavor. By gently cooking at a low temperature for a long period of time, confit retains the ingredients' natural moisture content, yielding a soft, silky, luxurious texture and deepened flavor. For produce (like tomatoes), confiting also boasts the benefit of keeping all of the nutrients locked in. No minerals are lost during cooking. Using cherry tomatoes conveniently forgoes the extra prep steps of blanching and coring, which are necessary to confit full-size tomatoes. Plus, smaller tomatoes are naturally sweeter, lending palate-stoking dimensionality alongside the savory oil. 

To confit tomatoes, feel free to take a cue from our simple flavor-packed tomato confit recipe. In a small roasting dish, cover washed cherry tomatoes with a generous layer of olive oil, then bake for roughly one hour at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, gently stirring halfway through. Larger plum-style tomatoes should be halved and placed in the dish cut-side down. As a jumping-off point, two cups of olive oil is the right amount for confiting 12 ounces of cherry tomatoes. 

Confit remains an especially popular technique among the home kitchens of Gascony in Southwest France — who commonly confit seasonal tomato harvests by roasting them in the oven (sans oil), dipping them in a quick-boiling vinegar bath, then canning them in olive-oil-filled jars. This traditional preservation method can be flavorful fun for home cooks with a penchant for canning. But, for quicker enjoyment, oven-roasting raw tomatoes in a layer of olive oil more than gets the job done.

To add even more flavor when using this method, arrange a few garlic cloves and some fresh basil in the bottom of the roasting pan before adding the cherry tomatoes and oil on top. Brown sugar and thyme make fabulous, complementary infusion elements, too. For a kick of sweet heat, you can also add a pinch of Aleppo pepper to confit cherry tomatoes.

You can also roast cherry tomatoes first to bring out their deepest flavor, as slow-cooking in olive oil naturally concentrates, sweetens, and intensifies that taste of the caramelized produce. This cooking technique can also improve the performance of mid-quality, out-of-season tomatoes or help use up extra produce that is about to go bad. To enjoy, place confit tomatoes on a charcuterie board, spread 'em on warm bread, or use them to top your favorite pasta dishes. They can also be served as a side dish to savory entrees like smoky grilled trout or rich lamb chops.