Yesterday we showed you one delicious way to serve up cannellini beans, and here’s another recipe today! You probably know that putting food items on toast is a fairly common way of preparing food, so much so that we’ve done several variations on it before, like broccoli toast, lentil toast, mushroom toast, red peppers on toast, spinach and artichokes on toast, zucchini toast, plain old beans on toast, and the perennial avocado toast. And if you happen to be looking for more ways to serve toppings on bread – well, you’ve come to the right place. Today’s recipe combines beans and cheese and tomatoes, all cooked in an interesting way and served on some delicious toasty bread. It’s tasty and colorful, and we threw it together on a weekday evening so it’s not all too hard to make. We based it on a recipe in Bon Appétit and the result was an interesting dinner that hits all your carb/cheese/protein requirements while still being meat-free.
To make this, you’ll need:
- A pound of beefsteak tomatoes
- 2 15-ounce cans of cannellini beans
- Olive oil
- A quart of cherry tomatoes
- Garlic
- Basil
- 7-8 ounces of fresh mozzarella
- Parmesan cheese
- A loaf of bread
To start, take your beefsteak tomatoes, cut them in half, and shred them using the large holes of a box grater. Drain and rinse all your beans and mix with the shredded tomatoes
Now in a large, oven-safe skillet warm 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat and add in your cherry tomatoes to cook for about 3 minutes, until you see them start to blister in spots. Chop up 4 garlic cloves and add those in to cook for another minute or so.
Pour the bean-tomato mixture into the skillet and add in a large handful of whole basil, plus generous amounts of salt and pepper. Let everything cook together for 10-15 minutes until you have a thickened, saucy mixture.
Then remove the stems from the basil, and cut your mozzarella into slices. Place the slices on top of the beans and sprinkle everything with around 2 tablespoons of Parmesan.
Place the pan in your broiler for 2-3 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly, but watch it carefully to make sure nothing burns. Once the pan comes out, add some more basil leaves on top.
To put everything together, cut your bread into thick slices and toast in your broiler, again making sure that you don’t let it burn. Use a spatula to place servings of beans, tomatoes and cheese on each slice of bread and finish off with another sprinkling of pepper.
It was interesting crafting this dish from two different types of tomatoes: the cherry tomatoes stay mostly whole while you’re cooking them and turn into nice little bites on your toast, while the grated tomatoes form almost a broth that your beans can cook in. The fresh mozzarella ties everything together and melts just a little nicer than regular, plain mozzarella – and serving everything on toasted bread is a nice way to support all these flavors. So all together you’ve got tender beans, fresh mozzarella, and lots of tomato, all piled on some good bread – what’s not to love in this new variation of food on toast?