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It’s always exciting to find a new ingredient that’s not only delicious but interesting and versatile. For me, the sun-dried tomato is the epitome of that kind of ingredient. It’s sweet, savory, a little tart, deeply umami-ful, and satisfyingly chewy. It perks up pasta, chicken, salad, pizza, and more. And the list of new recipes I have discovered that use sun-dried tomatoes is endless. Here are some of my favorites.
1. Baked Tuscan Chicken Casserole
It can be challenging to find a new way to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts. There are lots of recipes out there, but it sometimes seems they’re all either too much the same or too different (like I’m not sure that’s going to taste good different). Fear not. This Tuscan chicken casserole is all the stuff you love: creamy sauce, just the right blend of herbs, three cheeses, a green vegetable (spinach), and…sun-dried tomatoes.
Without sun-dried tomatoes, this casserole would still be good, but, with them, it’s great. Their full-bodied, slightly tangy taste is the perfect counterpoint to the delicate flavors of the other ingredients.
2. Tomato and Basil Bread Machine Bread
This crusty, flavorful bread mingles chopped sun-dried tomatoes with basil, a splash of buttermilk, and a sprinkle of parmesan. This loaf makes a great accompaniment to pasta, salad or soup. It’s also delicious as a sandwich bread, with mozzarella, smoked turkey, chicken or salami.
This recipe explains how to make this bread in a bread machine, but a machine is not required. Below the bread machine recipe, there are instructions for making it the traditional way (by hand).
3. Creamy Pasta and Smoked Sausage With Cheese
One of the great virtues of sun-dried tomatoes is that they go just as well with bold flavors as they do with subtle ones. In this one-skillet dish, smoked sausage takes center stage while the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, cream, cheese and herbs work together to create a flavor-filled sauce. When sausage and sauce are tossed with penne pasta, the result is a satisfying meal with a deliciously complex mixture of flavors and textures.
This recipe makes enough to serve seven people and takes only 30 minutes to make.
4. Creamy Tomato Chicken Breasts
This is one of those meals that looks (and tastes) impressive, but is actually really simple to make. Be sure to use a cast-iron skillet or another pan that can go from stovetop to oven, so you can keep chicken and sauce together throughout the cooking process. First, brown the chicken breasts.
Next, saute garlic and add chicken broth, cream, herbs, parmesan cheese and sun-dried tomatoes to make the sauce. Add the chicken breasts to the sauce and pop the whole kit and caboodle into the oven for 20 minutes. That’s it!
5. Chicken Piccata
Any way you cut it (no pun intended), chicken piccata is an elegant and exquisitely delicious dish. The tender, golden crusted chicken breast, the delicate lemony sauce, the unique flavor and texture of the capers. Well, this chicken piccata has all that and then some, because this dish includes – you guessed it – sun-dried tomatoes.
In this recipe, the chicken is prepared in the traditional way – dredged in flour then browned. But, when it comes to making the sauce, you are going to saute your garlic with 10 sun-dried tomatoes cut into strips, then add all your other ingredients. The end result is a chicken piccata that looks and tastes even better than usual – and that’s pretty darn good.
6. Savory Basil and Tomato Quick Bread
Don’t skip this recipe! This is not an accidental repetition of the tomato and basil bread recipe we gave you earlier. This bread is different in that it is a quick bread. That is, it uses baking powder and baking soda as leavening agents, instead of yeast.
The advantage is that these work much faster. Which means you can have this bread ready to eat (and still warm!) in an hour, baking time included. This bread gets its flavor from sun-dried tomatoes, fresh or dried basil, buttermilk and cubes of mozzarella cheese. Doesn’t that sound delicious?
7. Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
How about a vegetarian entree? In my opinion, the best vegetarian meals are ones that glorify vegetables and other non-meat foods, rather than pretend to be meat. This sun-dried tomato pasta is one of those dishes that knows vegetables are delicious and isn’t afraid to revel in it.
It’s got lots of fresh spinach, basil and garlic, a heaping cup of parmesan cheese, tender penne pasta and glorious sun-dried tomatoes – all lightly sauteed and tossed together to make a quick, scrumptious, satisfying vegetarian dinner.
8. Smoky Beans and Greens in Tomato Broth
Here’s another delicious vegetarian meal. This one uses a combination of sun-dried tomatoes and tomato paste – plus smoky paprika – to give vegetable broth a rich, hearty flavor. Collard greens, kale or chard, and butter beans, make up the “meat” of the meal.
Serve with crisped rustic bread and shaved parmesan. Equal parts healthy and delicious.
9. Sun-Dried Tomato and Arugula Pizza
This scrumptious pizza features cooked and coarsely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, thin slices of mozzarella, pureed garlic and fresh arugula leaves. It’s the perfect combination of sophisticated tastes and familiar comfort food. This recipe includes homemade pizza crust, but if you’re not in the mood (or don’t have time) to work that hard, pre-made pizza dough or even a pre-made crust should do just fine.
10. Chicken, Feta Cheese, and Sun-Dried Tomato Wraps
For lunch or a light dinner, use sun-dried tomatoes and sun-dried tomato salad dressing to make a restaurant-quality wrap. Marinate skinless, boneless chicken breasts and cook – either on the grill or in the oven. Toss chicken with crumbled feta cheese, fresh spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and dressing, and wrap in a whole-wheat tortilla.
11. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
If wraps are a little on the light side for lunch, have we got a sandwich for you. This grilled cheese sandwich with sun-dried tomato pesto is as hearty as a piece of pizza, and it tastes like one too – only better. First, whip up a pesto made of oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, red pepper, and freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Next, make a grilled cheese sandwich using buttered Italian bread, Fontina, Gruyere or any cheese that melts well, and pesto.
12. Sun-Dried Tomato Salad with Olives and Feta
Sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese taste like they were made for each other. This salad takes full advantage of this luscious combination, and throws in black olives and seeds (sunflower and pumpkin) for good measure. A bed of arugula and a lemon oregano dressing round out the meal.
It’s a veritable garden of flavors, and has enough protein to be thoroughly satisfying.
13. Sun-Dried Tomato, Spinach and Quinoa Salad
This vegan salad is a Mediterranean dream, with spinach, almonds, quinoa and sun-dried tomatoes in a lemony dressing. The homemade dressing is a blend of olive oil, lemon juice, fresh garlic and Dijon mustard, sprinkled with red pepper flakes. The most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of this salad is cooking the quinoa, but that could easily be done the day before.
Because quinoa is a complete protein, you don’t need to add any meat or cheese to this salad. If you want to anyway, feta would be amazing.
14. Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta Salad
If you’re a pasta salad lover, you must try this. As simple as it is, it makes the perfect lunch, side dish or midnight snack. Start with short pasta, chopped basil, mozzarella pearls and sun-dried tomatoes.
Add a homemade dressing made of olive oil, oil from the sun-dried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, garlic and Italian seasoning. Quick, easy and delicious.
15. Sun-Dried-Tomato Romesco Pasta
Forget any notions of pasta being comfort food. This dish is a veritable explosion of flavors. We’re talking major umami: sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, balsamic vinegar, capers, and pine nuts roasted to perfection.
Pulse these ingredients in a food processor to make your sauce, toss with a medium pasta, and top with golden toasted panko bread crumbs and parsley. Now lift your fork and enter nirvana.
16. Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto
Risotto is a northern Italian dish featuring Arborio rice cooked in broth until it has a creamy texture. This version includes the standard ingredients of butter, onions, white wine and parmesan cheese. It also incorporates heavy cream, garlic and, of course, sun-dried tomatoes.
The sun-dried tomatoes add substance and savory/tangy flavor to the dish. Serve as a main course, with a salad, or as a side dish with chicken, fish or beef.
17. Zucchini Noodles with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for the perfect sauce to go with zucchini “noodles.” Not just any sauce will do, as I’ve learned. Because zucchini contains a lot of water, your sauce must be fairly thick.
It also helps if your sauce is packed with flavor because the water in the zucchini will dilute it. This sun-dried tomato pesto is just the ticket, and it’s incredibly easy to make. Just puree sun-dried tomatoes and their oil, fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic and parmesan cheese in a food processor.
Toss with pasta and enjoy.
18. Tangy Sun-Dried Tomato and Olive Dip
This flavorful dip takes sun-dried tomatoes (dry, not oil-packed), soaks them, and then purees them with a bounty of other tasty ingredients. Kalamata olives, capers, garlic and balsamic vinegar are some of the key players. Serve with breadsticks and crudites.
19. Tangy Tomatillo Salad with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Tomatillos are small green husk-covered fruits best known as the main ingredient in the Mexican salsa verde. Their flavor is sweet, tart and a little bit fruity. This salad combines tomatillos, sun-dried tomatoes, jalapeno pepper, ginger, garlic and cilantro.
It doesn’t use a lot of dressing – just a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. The reason: the salad ingredients have so much flavor on their own that not much more is needed.
20. Make-ahead Breakfast Sandwiches with Spinach and Feta
Make these tasty sandwiches on the weekend and freeze them for a quick breakfast on the run. The key ingredients are English muffins, eggs, sausage patties, spinach, feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. There is also some garlic and red pepper thrown in for good measure.
One of the genius parts of this recipe is that the eggs are baked, with all the tasty ingredients mixed in, then cut into individual portions. This sandwich is not only convenient but delicious.