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Confit Tomatoes and Garlic
Confit tomatoes and garlic are rich, jammy, and incredibly simple to make, with cherry tomatoes and whole garlic cloves slowly cooked in olive oil until soft and deeply flavoured. The gentle cooking brings out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes while mellowing the garlic into something buttery and savoury. They’re brilliant spooned over toast, stirred through pasta, served with cheese, or kept in the fridge for adding instant flavour to simple meals.
Confit tomatoes and garlic
I make these confit tomatoes and garlic when I’ve got a glut of tomatoes or just need something deeply savoury and delicious on hand. Slow-cooked in olive oil with herbs until soft, jammy, and bursting with flavour, they’re perfect on sourdough, stirred through pasta, or dolloped on salads. I love how versatile they are – a total game-changer for easy weeknight meals or last-minute entertaining. Once you’ve tried them, you’ll never be without a jar in the fridge.
Ingredients
- 250g cherry tomatoes
- 1 bulb garlic
- Olive oil
- Thyme
- Maldon sea salt flakes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 120°C (conventional)
- Place the cherry tomatoes snugly in a small ovenproof dish. Insert as many garlic cloves as you can around the tomatoes.
- Sprinkle with a large pinch of Maldon sea salt flakes.
- Pour in enough olive oil to come just below the tops of the tomatoes. The tops should be sitting just above the oil.
- Tuck in a few sprigs of fresh thyme.
- Transfer to the oven and cook for 1 hour, or until the tomatoes are soft, jammy, and just starting to collapse.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before serving or transferring to a jar for storage.
Notes
- Confit tomatoes are one of those things that take almost no effort and reward you with something that tastes completely extraordinary. The slow cook in olive oil concentrates the tomatoes' natural sweetness and turns the garlic buttery and mild.
- The tomatoes should fit snugly in the dish. Too much space means you'll need more oil to cover them, and too little means they'll be cramped and cook unevenly. Choose your dish size accordingly.
- Use good quality olive oil here. It infuses with the tomatoes, garlic, and thyme as it cooks and becomes a deeply flavoured confit oil that's just as valuable as the tomatoes themselves.
- Don't let the oil come above the tops of the tomatoes. You want the tops to blister slightly in the oven heat rather than being completely submerged.
- Low and slow is everything here. 120°C is gentle enough to confit rather than roast, which gives you that silky, jammy texture rather than dried out or burst tomatoes.
- The garlic cloves confit alongside the tomatoes and become completely soft and sweet. Don't waste them. They're brilliant spread on bread or stirred through the pasta along with the tomatoes.
- Fresh thyme infuses the oil beautifully. Rosemary works just as well if that's what you've got.
- The confit oil left in the jar after the tomatoes are used is liquid gold. Use it for dressings, drizzling over bread, or frying anything that would benefit from a deeply flavoured oil.
- Store in a sealed jar in the fridge, fully submerged in the oil, for up to 2 weeks.
- Not suitable for freezing as the tomatoes will turn mushy and watery after defrosting.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
10Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 17Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 59mgCarbohydrates: 1gFiber: 0gSugar: 1gProtein: 0g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Serve this with
- Spoon over Smashed Avocado on Turkish Toast for a rich, savoury brunch. The sweet tomatoes and mellow confit garlic work beautifully with creamy avocado and a poached egg.
- Toss through hot pasta with Parmesan and black pepper for an almost effortless dinner. The tomatoes collapse into a glossy sauce while that gorgeous garlic-infused oil coats every strand.
- Serve alongside grilled steak with crusty bread for soaking up the tomato and garlic-infused oil. The sweet tomatoes make a lovely contrast to a simply seasoned piece of beef.
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Confit Tomatoes and Garlic
Tiktok Inspired Again
If you’re anything like me, your phone is probably full of FoodTok videos you’re never going to make. I watch them the same way some people watch nature documentaries – fascinated, cosy on the couch, full of admiration, absolutely no intention of going outside. The confit garlic ones always catch me, though. Something about the glossy oil and soft golden cloves gets me every time. So last weekend, I caved. But instead of just garlic, I added tomatoes too – because I’d bought them earlier in the week and promptly forgot they existed. And ohhh my goodness. Confit Tomatoes and Garlic is one of those recipes that looks impressive, tastes amazing, and requires so little effort that you can make it half-asleep in your dressing gown.
I made it to go with a nice piece of steak and some crusty gluten-free toast. Nothing fancy, just one of those solo Saturday night dinners that feels a bit like a hug. The tomatoes turned all sweet and soft, the garlic melted into butter, and the oil soaked into the toast in the best possible way. I didn’t even try to be delicate with it – I just smooshed the lot onto the toast and called it dinner. The leftovers went straight into jars and have been making appearances in everything from breakfast eggs to thrown-together pasta bowls. I even caught myself dipping a spoon in just to taste the oil again. It’s that kind of recipe.
Tar-jay, darling
Right, let’s talk about Target. Or as I like to say when I’m feeling a bit fancy – Tar-jay. I hadn’t really paid them much attention since coming back to Australia. I’d mostly been in a Kmart and Myer loop, to be honest. But then one afternoon I found some quirky plant stakes for the garden, and that led me down a rabbit hole into their homewares section. Next thing I know, I’ve got new linen for the blog photos and the cutest glass jars for storing leftovers.
I’m a bit particular about jars. Most of the bamboo lid ones are all style and no substance – you know the type, with those loose suction seals that are just asking for trouble. But these ones have a proper metal twist lid hidden under the bamboo, so they look lovely but actually work. I filled mine with the leftover confit – one with the tomatoes, one with the garlic, and one just for the oil. Because you don’t throw away oil that good. Honestly, they’re now permanent residents in my fridge. I drizzle that oil over everything. Salads, roast veg, even a cheeky bowl of couscous. Target really surprised me. They’ve definitely lifted their game since I was last paying attention.
Content Creation
Now, before anyone says, “You should film that!” I know. I know. I’ve tried. A couple of years ago, I really gave it a proper go – tripods, lighting, the lot. But honestly, trying to cook while filming is harder than it looks. You’ve got to worry about angles, steam fogging up the lens, forgetting to hit record. I once made an entire lasagne and realised I hadn’t filmed a single step. So I shelved the idea and went back to cooking for fun, which is probably how it should be.
That said, I did do a bit of livestreaming on Twitch, and it was brilliant. It felt more natural, more like a chat in the kitchen than a production. People would ask questions, I’d explain things badly but enthusiastically, and we’d all laugh when I dropped a spoon or forgot what I was saying. I really loved it. But my current kitchen is a bit cramped for that setup, so for now, I’m back to writing. Maybe one day I’ll figure out a low-effort way to share video recipes without feeling like I’m filming a cooking show. Until then, I’ll keep making a mess and telling you about it here.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between confit tomatoes and roasted tomatoes? The method and the result. Roasted tomatoes go into a hot oven and develop caramelised, slightly charred edges with a more concentrated, intense flavour. Confit tomatoes cook slowly in oil at a very low temperature, which gives you something silky, jammy, and almost sweet rather than caramelised. The oil also becomes deeply flavoured during the cook, which is something roasting doesn’t give you.
Do the tomatoes need to be fully submerged in oil? No, and deliberately not. The tops of the tomatoes should sit just above the oil level so they blister slightly in the oven heat while the rest of the tomato confits gently in the oil below. Fully submerging them would prevent that blistering and change the texture of the finished tomato.
What do I do with the oil left in the jar? Use it for everything. It’s deeply infused with tomato, garlic, and thyme and is genuinely one of the most flavourful cooking oils you’ll have in your kitchen. Use it for dressings, drizzling over bread, tossing through pasta, or frying anything that would benefit from a concentrated tomato and herb flavour. Don’t throw it away.
Ingredient breakdown
Cherry tomatoes
Placed snugly in a small ovenproof dish so they fit tightly together without too much space around them, which keeps the oil level high enough to reach just below their tops without using an excessive amount. Too much space and you’ll need significantly more oil to achieve the right level. Too cramped and they’ll cook unevenly. The right size dish makes a real difference here. The slow hour at 120°C transforms them from bright and firm to soft, jammy, and intensely sweet without bursting or drying out.
Garlic
A whole bulb, cloves separated and peeled, tucked around and between the tomatoes before the oil goes in. The garlic confits alongside the tomatoes over the full hour, transforming from sharp and pungent to completely soft, sweet, and buttery. Don’t discard the garlic cloves when the tomatoes are gone. They’re brilliant spread on bread or stirred through pasta alongside the tomatoes.
Olive oil
Enough to come just below the tops of the tomatoes, which is a fitting-the-dish measurement rather than a fixed volume. Use a good quality olive oil here because it’s doing double duty as the cooking medium and the finished confit oil, absorbing the flavour of the tomatoes, garlic, and thyme over the entire cook and becoming something deeply flavourful in its own right. The oil left in the jar after the tomatoes are used is just as valuable as the tomatoes themselves.
Fresh thyme
A few sprigs tucked in with the tomatoes and garlic before the dish goes into the oven. It infuses gently into the oil and the tomatoes over the long, slow cook, adding a subtle herbal depth without overwhelming the natural sweetness of the tomatoes. Rosemary works just as well as a substitute if that’s what’s in the garden.
Maldon sea salt flakes
A large pinch sprinkled over the tomatoes before the oil goes in, which seasons the tomatoes from the outside and draws out a little moisture during cooking that mixes into the oil and concentrates the flavour. Sea salt flakes dissolve gently during the cook rather than sitting on the surface.
