Tomato Pie

This tomato pie is exactly what to make with a counter full of end-of-summer tomatoes that are too ripe for sandwiches but too good to waste. A flaky crust, layers of juicy tomatoes and fresh basil, all topped with a golden, slightly crackled mayo-cheese topping that bakes up almost sinful. It’s easy enough for a weeknight and good enough that seconds disappear fast.

Why You’ll Love It

Uses up ripe summer tomatoes— perfect for that end-of-season overflow
Ridiculously easy — one crust, one bowl of topping, minimal prep
That mayo-cheese topping — bakes into a golden, crackled layer that’s part cheese sauce, part magic
Duke’s mayonnaise makes a difference — tangier and less sweet, holds up beautifully in the oven
Kid-approved — even picky eaters go back for seconds

Ingredient Notes

The tomatoes are really the whole show here, so use good ones — not the sad pink ones from the grocery store in February, obviously, this is a summer recipe through and through. Ripe, red, a little heavy in your hand. I like a mix of shapes if I can get them, though four large ones is plenty and you don’t need to get precious about it.

For the cheese, I use cheddar and mozzarella both, and honestly some weeks I’ve swapped in whatever odds and ends were in my fridge drawer — a little parmesan once, a weird gouda another time that Danny brought home from a friend’s house for some reason I never got the full story on. It’s forgiving that way.

The basil — fresh, not dried, this isn’t the place to cut that corner. And the pie shell, look, I use frozen. I know some of you make your own crust and God bless you, but I’ve got other things going on.

Ingredients

1 9-inch deep dish frozen pie shell
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella or cheddar cheese (whatever’s closer in the fridge, honestly)
4 large ripe tomatoes, sliced — maybe more if they’re on the smaller side, I never measure this precisely
1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped, though I usually just eyeball a good handful
3/4 cup Duke’s mayonnaise
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. While that’s coming up to temperature, sprinkle about a quarter cup of shredded cheese — mozzarella, cheddar, doesn’t matter — into the bottom of your frozen pie shell. Pop it in the oven for about 5 minutes, just to pre-bake it a little. This step matters more than it looks like it should — I skipped it once, in a hurry, and ended up with a soggy bottom crust that Danny still brings up sometimes, unprompted, like it’s a family scandal.

Take the crust out. Now layer in your tomato slices — don’t be too fussy about arranging them, just get them in there, overlapping a bit is fine — and scatter the chopped basil over top. There’s a temptation to salt the tomatoes at this point and let them sit, drain some liquid out first, and honestly, sometimes I do that and sometimes I completely forget and just throw them in. Both ways work. The drained version is maybe slightly less watery in the end, but I can’t say I’ve done enough of a controlled experiment to be a hundred percent sure. I probably should. I never do.

In a separate bowl, mix your mayonnaise with the cheddar and mozzarella — the three-quarter cup amounts, not the little quarter cup you already used. Stir it till it’s all one gloppy, cheesy mass, kind of unappetizing looking in the bowl if I’m being honest, but don’t let that put you off.

Spread that mixture over the tomatoes, covering as much as you can, all the way to the edges of the crust ideally, though mine never quite makes it perfectly to the edges and it’s fine.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until the top’s gone golden brown and a little blistered in spots. Let it sit a few minutes before you cut into it — I never do, I always cut too soon and it falls apart a little on the plate, but it tastes the same either way, just messier.

Variations

My daughter Kelly makes hers with a layer of caramelized onions under the tomatoes, which I’ll admit is a nice touch, though it does add another twenty minutes to the whole affair and some days I just don’t have that in me. She also swears by adding a little Old Bay to the mayo mixture, which sounds strange and honestly tastes a little strange too, but she loves it, so. I tried it once with sun-dried tomatoes mixed in with the fresh ones and it was — not bad, exactly, just a different pie. Chewier. My husband didn’t love it. I probably won’t do that one again.

Storage & Reheating

It keeps in the fridge a few days, covered, though it does get a little watery as the tomatoes keep releasing liquid — that’s just the nature of it. I’ve left it out on the counter overnight more than once, which I know you’re not supposed to do, and lived to tell about it, but I won’t officially recommend that here. Reheat slices in the oven if you can be bothered, maybe 350 for ten minutes or so — the microwave works too but it gets a little sad and soft that way, loses that crackly top.

Final Notes

I still think about Carol standing on that porch with her bag of overripe tomatoes, and I don’t even know if she remembers giving them to me, honestly — I should ask her next time I see her. She moved a couple streets over a few years back so I don’t see her as often as I used to, which is its own small sad thing I don’t think about too much. Anyway. Serve this warm, maybe with a simple green salad alongside if you’re feeling like you need a vegetable that isn’t also somehow a fruit pretending to be a vegetable. Or don’t. It’s good enough on its own.