Cheese And Tomato Bake {Easy Recipe}

This Cheese and Tomato bake is my version of a side dish I used to have years ago, way before I had kids, way before I knew how easy this was to make at home and honestly, it was hang-over food. Soft potatoes cooked in tomato sauce, smothered in melting crispy Cheddar and cooked with Rosemary on top. These days it's cooked to please a crowd and for a dish that uses only 3 main ingredients, I'm asked for the recipe a lot. Why? Because it's simple, wholesome yumminess :)

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Cheese And Tomato Bake

There's nothing outwardly special about this recipe. It's a cheese and tomato bake, made with potatoes. Yet somehow it comes together to create something magical. Even though I'd love to have done, I've not done anything clever here. It's a dish that uses really simple ingredients and the magic happens in the oven all by itself.

I use store cupboard tomato puree. I have tried making this using a freshly made tomato sauce but the tomato puree works better. I add nothing to it, not even so much as a touch of Oregano as I usually would. The potatoes soak up the tomatoey flavor as the dish cooks and as you can see from the picture below, the tomato seeps into the potato edges and cooks them beautifully.

Layering cheddar throughout this before it goes into the oven means you get a cheesiness in the potatoes instead of just on top of the bake: There's more crispy bits, and more cheesiness throughout without having to use bucket loads more cheese.

I'll usually throw some Rosemary from the garden on top before this goes in the oven. The smell is devine and even when you take it off before you eat it, there's feint Rosemary in the potatoes. Feel free to leave the Rosemary off if it's going to out little ones off, but personally, we love it!

Cheesy Potatoes

If like me you believe that cheese and potatoes are one fo those food pairing that are meant to be together, you're going to love this recipe. The hardest part is peeling the potatoes which really isn't very hard at all, and once thsat's done, it takes a few minutes to get this together.

I par boil the potatoes before it goes into the oven. In the same way you par boil the potatoes for roasties, this works best of the potatoes are almost cooked, with slightly crumbly edges when you're preparing it. Doing this means it takes just 15 minutes in a hot oven, enough to allow the tomato puree to soak into the potatoes and the cheese to melt and crisp up.

Cheese And Tomato Variations

It's easy to jazz this up if you wanted to and make some additions:

Bacon - Add some thinly sliced strips of cooked bacon to the tomato mix before it goes into the oven

Onions - Thin slice and pan fry some onions until tender and add the the mix before cooking in the oven

Cheese - Try swapping the Cheddar cheese for Blue cheese or another cheese you love. As long as the cheese can be shredded or crumbled and is able to melt, you can sub it into this recipe

Make Ahead Bake

This cheese and tomato bake is a good make ahead recipe and it also freezes really well. If you want to make this ahead, just make the recipe up right up to the point it goes into the oven. Let the potato cool down and simply cover the dish with food wrap and pop it into the fridge until you need it.

It can stay in the fridge for up to 2 days.

When you want to cook it, bring it back to room temperature for a couple of hours and bake in the oven as per the recipe.

If you've added bacon or another meat, check the date on the meat and don't make ahead more than 1 day before you need it.

More Clean Eating Potato Recipes

• Mashed Potatoes and Leeks
• Loaded crispy potato balls
• Bacon fried potatoes
• Healthy Parmesan Potatoes
• Shoestring fries

How To Make Cheese And Tomato Bake

Ingredients

• 4 Potatoes Peeled, diced into ¾ inch cubes
• ½ Cup Cheddar cheese Or other cheese you prefer
• ¾ Cup Tomato puree
• Rosemary Optional
• Salt and pepper For seasoning
• Olive oil

Instructions

• Heat your oven to 190°
• Put a large pan of water on the cooker top to boil and add the potatoes once the water is boiling. Boil the potatoes for 8 minutes
• Drain the potatoes and return to the pan
• Mix the tomato puree, being a little careful not to crumble to potatoes too much. Season well
• Grease your oven dish lightly with olive oil
• add a third of your potato mix, then add a third of your cheese. Repeat this until the last layer is cheese
• Add a couple of sprigs of Rosemary if you're using it
• Bake for 15 minutes until the cheese on top of the bake is golden
• Serve

Recipe