15 Easy Tomato Dinner Recipes for Summer
on Feb 24, 2025, Updated Apr 24, 2025
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If you’re looking for what to do with tomatoes, we have you covered with these 15 Easy Tomato Dinner Recipes for Summer. During the summer season, tomatoes are extremely versatile, whether they are from the Farmer’s Market, your local grocery store, or if you’re growing your own. You can also preserve summer tomatoes to use year-round by canning.
From the variety of tomatoes out there during summertime, we’re sharing all our favorite recipes below, from classics to salads, soups, main meals for dinners, and more.
Our Top Tomato Recipes
These recipes can be served as appetizers, salads, or dinners!
- Learning How To Make Cherry Tomato Confit is a great building block for any tomato recipe.
- Keep it classic with our Summer Panzanella Salad tossed with fresh heirloom tomatoes and loads of vegetables.
- For one of our favorite pasta recipes, be sure to check out Spicy Sausage Cherry Tomato Pasta, filled with flavor and protein.
Start with Salads
Caprese Salad with a Honey Cilantro Lime Dressing
Summer tomatoes being used for this caprese salad tossed with a honey cilantro lime dressing is everything! A tangy and sweet dressing paired with assorted heirloom and cherry tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, and buffalo mozzarella. All of the flavors in this salad are just beautiful and scream summer! We are using heirloom tomatoes for this recipe, but you can opt to use Roma tomatoes, grape tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes.
This is a great side dish, as well, and can be served with any of your favorite proteins like shrimp, pork, chicken, and steak. You can serve this as is or with some crusty bread.
A classic summer panzanella salad: tomatoes, cucumber, homemade bread cubes, cucumbers, red onions, mozzarella, and basil tossed with a tomato dijon dressing.
This Thai-Inspired salad is so refreshing! I LOVE the mixture with Thai basil and shallots. Then pour over a homemade soy-fish sauce dressing and you have yourselves a SUPER quick and easy salad.
Easy Appetizers
If you love spicy and smoky flavors, this roasted chipotle salsa recipe is for you! It’s SO easy to make, and it is a great prep-ahead appetizer for any party, or as a condiment. It can be served with chips, tacos, chicken, nachos, burritos, and even on top of grilled meats.
When it gets warm outside, this is the exact recipe that I gravitate towards. I am a lover of all soups, and this cold-form gazpacho with all my favorite vegetables is just epic!
This Italian bruschetta recipe might be my favorite thing EVER. This recipe holds a special place in my heart because it was hands down the first recipe I learned to make/cook. (And definitely one of the top recipes I would defer to people to make when they are starting to cook, it is foolproof!) When I was first learning about cooking and expanding my skills, this recipe was one of the first ones I learned and conquered.
Pasta Recipes Using Tomatoes
This pasta is summery, easy to come together, and just so delicious. You make your own pasta sauce with garlic and basil and serve with your favorite pasta.
Spicy Rigatoni Alla Vodka with Whipped Ricotta
This epic and creamy spicy rigatoni alla vodka recipe is beautiful, and topped up a notch with whipped ricotta underneath! Dreamy! What I love about this recipe is that it can easily be made in one pan, and it can also easily be made ahead of time. You’ll just make your sauce ahead of time, and toss your pasta/pasta water/parmesan cheese at the end when you’re ready to serve. Just perfect!
Spaghetti Pomodoro is the ultimate pasta dish. Made with ripe tomatoes and fresh basil, this recipe is perfect for an easy dinner. While traditional Pomodoro uses ripe fresh tomatoes or crushed tomatoes, this recipe uses roasted tomatoes in the oven to make our pasta sauce.
Spicy Sausage Cherry Tomato Pasta
Try this Italian spicy sausage pasta, tossed with basil and sun-dried tomatoes. It’s vibrant, has a ton of flavor, is summery, and has a hint of spice from the sausage, and tang from the sun-dried tomatoes.
Main Dishes for Dinner
Roasted Tomato Caprese and Prosciutto Sandwich
The dreamiest roasted tomato caprese and prosciutto sandwich! Eat open-faced or slice into a sandwich. It starts with a homemade sunflower seed pesto, then toasty baguette, prosciutto, jammy roasted tomatoes, and mozzarella (or burrata).
These mussels in spicy tomato sauce are SO good (and so simple to make, hello, one-pot meals!) These mussels in red sauce are a simple sweat of aromatics, Calabrian chili pepper paste & crushed tomatoes, simmered to perfection.
One Pan Seared Salmon with Burst Cherry Tomatoes
I LOVE this one pan-seared salmon recipe with burst cherry tomatoes! You know my obsession with tomato season, and this new recipe is heavily inspired by all the bounty of tomatoes I’ve been seeing at the markets and the farmer’s markets in my area.
Soups for the Soul
Roasted Tomato Soup with Crispy Gruyère Toasts
All it takes is one pan to confit the tomatoes, blend until creamy, and toss with cream. Finish off with cheesy, crispy, and crunchy gruyère toasts. All these flavors combined together are absolutely epic! A little bit of balsamic vinegar finishes off the soup is a special way.
This is a vegetarian version of lasagna soup that can be easily adapted to be plant-based or with meat like ground beef or Italian sausage. All the components of a traditional lasagna are mixed together in one bowl of goodness. Vegetables like spinach, shiitake mushrooms (my absolutely favorite), and zucchini are so perfect in this. The soup is made with a base of aromatics and whole peeled tomatoes, then made creamy with either almond milk or heavy cream. Make sure you finish with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil!
Easy Tomato Recipes FAQs
If you have too many fresh tomatoes, you can make Tomato Confit to preserve some of your tomatoes. You can also preserve your tomatoes by canning, and saving them for the year to come.
Tomatoes do contain protein, but they are not considered a complete protein.
You can roast tomatoes with salmon or chicken, prepare them fresh for bruschetta, or toss in salads, to name a few.
Yes, you can freeze fresh tomatoes, however, this will alter their texture, so be sure to keep this in mind. However, if you do freeze fresh tomatoes, they are best utilized for recipes such as soups or purees.
Even More Tomato Recipes
Find all our Summer recipes in our index!
If you do make any of these Tomato Recipes, leave a comment and give this recipe a rating, we would love to hear what you think! Don’t forget to tag us on Instagram, we love to see what you’re making! If you’d like to stay in touch and get the latest in your inbox, sign up for our Newsletter. We can also be found on YouTube, Facebook, and Pinterest!
I LOVE tomato season! Enjoy all my favorite tomato recipes from the site!