Bake

Easy Tomato Galette With Parmesan Crust

by:
August 10, 2023
5
10 Ratings
Easy Tomato Galette With Parmesan Crust
Photo by Food52
  • Prep time 1 hour 30 minutes
  • Cook time 50 minutes
  • makes 1 (12-inch) galette
Author Notes

This galette is super simple to put together, but still features a homemade crust. The resulting bake is a perfect summer baking project—or whenever you find yourself with a few too many tomato jewels. As someone who loves to make pastry crusts, I feel tomato season is one time of the year that is especially worth it to put in that extra homemade effort. Juicy tomatoes and flaky, buttery crust were positively made for each other. I’m often surprised how rarely folks opt to add something flavorful to their homemade crusts and I aim to remedy that! I’ve been known to add everything from herbs and spices, to citrus zest and vanilla bean to my pie crusts, but this salty savory crust is truly one of my very favorites. Spiked with a hefty amount of finely grated parmesan cheese and some freshly ground black pepper, this crust becomes like a tender cacio e pepe blanket that encases the tomatoes.

The tomatoes are tucked into that crust nestled on a bed of soft, fluffy cheese, too. A blend of Boursin, cream cheese, scallions, and garlic is spread onto the base of the crust, and the tomatoes lay on top. The resulting galette is as worthy of a lazy summer supper as it is a festive celebration with friends, and slices are portable enough to transport to the beach or a picnic, too. Reheat leftover slices in a low oven—or even your toaster oven. The slices crisp up perfectly the next day; wrap them in foil if you don’t want to risk the crust over-browning as you reheat! —Erin Jeanne McDowell

What You'll Need
Watch This Recipe
Easy Tomato Galette With Parmesan Crust
Ingredients
  • For the Parmesan pastry dough:
  • 2 1/2 cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 5 ounces (140 grams) Parmesan cheese, finely grated
  • 3/4 teaspoon (2 grams) freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) fine sea salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks / 226 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch/1 cm cubes
  • 1/2 cup (115 grams) ice water, plus more as needed
  • For the filling & assembly:
  • 8 ounces (226 grams) Boursin cheese (or similar, soft/spreadable cheese), at room temperature
  • 4 ounces (113 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 1 cup fresh scallions, thinly sliced (about 60 grams)
  • 2 garlic cloves (about 10 grams), minced
  • 4 medium or 2 large (500 grams) heirloom tomatoes, sliced into ¼-inch-thick slices
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) extra-virgin olive oil
  • Kosher salt, to taste
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1 (56 grams) large egg
  • 1 tablespoon (15 grams) heavy cream or milk
  • 1/2 cup (50 grams) Parmesan cheese, grated
Directions
  1. For the Parmesan pastry dough:
  2. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the flour, parmesan, salt, and pepper to combine. Add the cubed cold butter, and pulse in short bursts until the butter is almost completely incorporated—you may still see a few small pieces of visible butter in the mixture, but most of the mixture will look a bit more like cornmeal.
  3. Add the water and pulse until the dough just barely comes together around the food processor blade. Remove from the food processor, and form into a 1 inch-/2.5 centimeter-thick disc. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (or up to overnight).
  1. For the filling & assembly:
  2. Heat the oven to 400°F/200°C with an oven rack in the center. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. In a small bowl, mix the Boursin, cream cheese, scallions, and garlic to combine. Set aside.
  4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled dough to ¼ inch-/6 millimeters-thick (about 15 inches/38 centimeters wide). Transfer to the baking sheet.
  5. Dollop the cheese and scallion mixture over the center of the dough, then use a small offset spatula to spread into an even layer in the center, leaving the outer 2 inches/5 centimeters of the pastry uncovered.
  6. Arrange the sliced tomatoes in an even layer over the surface of the cheese. Drizzle olive oil over the tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Fold the excess dough around the edge to encase the filling, pleating it as needed while you work.
  7. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and cream or milk until evenly combined. Brush the mixture all over the exterior of the galette. Sprinkle the parmesan generously over the whole galette—both the filling and the crust.
  8. Bake the galette until the crust is deeply golden brown and the tomatoes are tender and bubbling, 40 to 50 minutes. If you gently shake the baking sheet back and forth, the galette should move easily—if it doesn’t, the bottom crust may not be fully baked. Serve warm or at room temperature. If serving later, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
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Erin Jeanne McDowell
I always have three kinds of hot sauce in my purse. I have a soft spot for making people their favorite dessert, especially if it's wrapped in a pastry crust. My newest cookbook, Savory Baking, came out in Fall of 2022 - is full of recipes to translate a love of baking into recipes for breakfast, dinner, and everything in between!

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13 Reviews

liz P.
liz P. November 25, 2023
5 stars!!! The dough seemed like the rough puff dough, so I kneaded it 4 times- it came out so flaky! I also sprinkled red pepper flakes and dried oregano over tomatoes before baking. Yum yum yum! Thank you for being so fabulous in sharing your knowledge!
 
Smaug
Smaug September 16, 2023
I was mostly interested in the crust, and I really meant to do it just as written; I even used a food processor, which I practically never do for pastry crusts. But I just couldn't add all that water; about a third of it had thee dough already a little damper than I prefer. Also, 1/4" thick didn't give nearly the stated size; it ended up still very thick, about 3/16". Came out vvery good. I went a little different way with the filling; I wasn't really thrilled with the soft cheeses anyway, and current insane grocery prices make going out and buying a few things for a recipe impractical; at any rate, I went with a mixture of cheddar and gruyere with some herbs, a roasted sweet pepper (in short strips) and some "mini San Marzano" tomatoes. Though for all I know they're heirlooms (regular San Marzanos are), and they were about 1/4" thick when halved. The galette cooked up nicely and was quite tasty, but awfully rich; I general only do fats on this sort of scale for desserts. I think I'll stick to pizza, or at least bread based crusts, for future tomato pies, but this is an interesting approach.
 
Espg
Espg September 13, 2023
This was a fantastic recipe for a light dinner. Crust was wonderful, flaky and flavorful. Layered goat cheese with pesto on top severed as a wonderful bed for our garden tomatoes.
Great recipe to enjoy our garden hatcest
 
pvanhagenlcsw
pvanhagenlcsw September 4, 2023
This tart as written is monumentally amazing. The crust was crispy and savory and held up perfectly with the tomato filling. I have yet to adjust to cooking for two but no matter, the leftovers also held up and allowed us to enjoy it for several days. Thanks for a wonderful recipe.
 
lookingoutthewindow
lookingoutthewindow August 23, 2023
OMG! One of the best savory crusts ever. I cut the recipe in half because there was only two of us. The crust was flaky, fully cooked and crispy golden brown. No soggy bottom, tomatoes and all.

I used tomatoes from the local farmer's market. They were not heriloom, but fresh local seemed a good subsitute.

My cheese spread I took some pretty serious liberties with but felt were parallel changes to the cheese spread Erin created. I had made a whipped feta last night for dinner using cream cheese/full fat Greek yoghurt/feta. I also had a tablespoon of fresh cheddar pimento cheese dip, that I had made a week ago. I used this clean out your refrig selection in place of the cream cheese. I used used Allouette garlic/herbed cheese because that was the closest thing my grocery had to Boursin cheese.

I stayed true to the method Erin showed, including referigating the dough and layering of the two cheese spreads, tomatoes and the parmesean.

We had it for lunch today and it was a hit with my husband as well. Thanks for the great video and recipe. We loved it. I appreciated that it was forgiving as well. Reading other reviews it seems like folks all played with the recipe and got great results. That is a 5 star recipe.
 
Smaug
Smaug September 15, 2023
I really wish recipe writers would give up the "heirloom tomatoes" thing. It's a purely horticultural term and tells you nothing about the culinary properties of a tomato. I'm a little curious about the ctust; I fully agree with the author about flavoring crusts- it takes very little to produce a big result. But that seems like an awful lot of water and she's making it double the thickness of the usual pie crust.
 
Cathy C.
Cathy C. August 21, 2023
This was delicious!! I couldn’t find the Boursin cheese, so I used 8 oz. Of cream cheese and 2 ounces of Brie and then added fresh garden chives, basil, thyme and rosemary. The crust is so flaky. I had 4 different heirlooms, so it was pretty too!!
 
Ellen A.
Ellen A. August 21, 2023
Another 5 star review from me. This was a big hit at a little lunch I hosted. Everything about it was great--bottom cooked fully golden brown, cheesy delicious filling (I actually shied away from using a full cup of green onions, but in hindsight, it totally could have taken the whole cup). I expected lots of loose tomato juice and messy leaks, but it was perfect. Perfect. And it was honestly pretty easy. I recommend good quality pre-grated part for the timesaver. Thank you!
 
Every1loveswhitlock
Every1loveswhitlock August 21, 2023
Delicious! I used whole wheat AP flour because that’s what I had in the pantry. The rest of the recipe I followed completely and it was soooo GOOD! I loved the video and tips related to the recipe too. Thank you for an easy to follow recipe with basic and flavorful ingredients. I plan on making this again… probably tomorrow.
 
meglt
meglt August 20, 2023
I didn't believe that this recipe was actually "easy" but my galette came together so easily! It baked perfectly, no leaks! I would say to go heavy with the tomatoes, don't be afraid of layering them. I let my dough chill overnight.
 
Heidi
Heidi August 20, 2023
This was fantastic. I loved and so did my family. I can imagine endless variations on it too. Definitely will make again. I also followed the tip in the notes to make sure your galette slides freely on the parchment. The crust was perfect.
 
JodyCooks
JodyCooks August 18, 2023
I watched the video for the tomato pie and thought I would try it. I was worried that the juicy tomatoes would ruin my crust. We had a nice cool day to justify a 400 degree oven. This was delicious. I used the hint about the pastry scooting across the parchment to make sure it was done. My crust was flaky with no soggy parts. A great experience and recipe. Will be making this again.
 
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