Three recipe ideas with sun-dried tomatoes

Surprising your guests with a memorable dish is not always easy, especially at a table of demanding palates. That is why we want to talk about an ingredient that does a lot of work for very little effort: sun-dried tomatoes, a staple of every Apulian larder, where summer tomatoes are split, salted and left to dry in the sun so they keep through the winter.

Before you start: rinse and rehydrate

Sun-dried tomatoes go into the kitchen the right way or not at all: used straight from the jar or the bag, they can throw off the whole dish. The method we use at home is simple.

1. Rinse them under running water to wash off the salt they were dried with.
2. Rehydrate them in a mixture of 70% water and 30% vinegar.
3. Drain them: now they are ready for your home cooking.

Three recipes with sun-dried tomatoes

Risotto with sun-dried tomatoes

The first of our three ideas is a risotto with sun-dried tomatoes. Creamy and full of flavour without being too much, and children like it too.

Orecchiette with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes

The second is a pasta course: orecchiette, the small ear-shaped pasta of Puglia, with sun-dried tomatoes and artichokes. Original, different from the usual, and with that Apulian touch everybody is after. You can start from our home-made orecchiette, and if artichoke season is far away, artichokes in oil do the job.

Sea bream fillets with sun-dried tomatoes

The third is a fish main course: fillets of sea bream with sun-dried tomatoes. Hard to describe how good it is: you have to try it. If you like sea bream, it is also the star of another Apulian classic, sea bream with olives.

How to use them in other dishes

These are only a few ideas. Once rinsed and rehydrated, sun-dried tomatoes pair naturally with the other products of Puglia, starting with artichokes. For more dishes from the region, browse our collection of Apulian recipes.