File this three cheese pesto tomato galette under: Thing I forgot to tell you about but for no good reason because it’s one of the best things I’ve made.

It all started a few weeks ago when I got a generous delivery of tomatoes. They took up half my counter and I stared at them for a few minutes wondering what to do with them. I used most of them to make tomato soup but I reserved a few for this three cheese, pesto, tomato galette.

This galette gets a big boost from fresh herbs, which I happened to have in my fridge from when I made tomato soup. Sprinkle some fresh rosemary and/or thyme on top and your galette with get extra flavor. Plus, the herbs complement the cheese and tomatoes.

If you’re not a fan of pesto, you could sub in another kind of sauce. But I’m a big fan of the pesto, goat cheese, mozzarella, ricotta combo. The cheeses are all kind of mild by themselves, but together, they enhance the tomatoes, balance the pesto, and manage to bring all the ingredients into a cohesive galette.

A tip for prepping tomatoes: Try to get as much extra juice out of them as possible. You can do this by placing the tomato slices on a wire rack on top of paper towels or a rimmed baking sheet, sprinkling them with salt, and letting them sit for a while. Doing this prevents your galette crust from becoming soggy or the topping from becoming too runny as the galette bakes.

My favorite part about this dish is the crust. I improvised on a recipe I made a couple years ago for a sweet strawberry galette, and now I want to use it in everything. It has whole wheat flour, which makes the dough slightly more tangy and less sweet, but it also has a little sugar to balance out the salt. It’s a good backdrop for anything you want to put on top of it.

I ate about half this galette in one sitting and then I forced myself to save the rest for meals the next day. You could probably eat it all at once, especially if you’re hungry, but I’d urge you to wait if you can. The flavors settle overnight and the galette is even better on day two.

Here’s a song to get you started on your tomato galette journey.

Three Cheese Pesto Tomato Galette

Ingredients

for the crust:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 – 3/4 cup ice cold water

for the galette:
3 orange or yellow tomatoes, thinly sliced
salt
basil pesto, homemade or store bought
goat cheese, Mozzarella cheese, and whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 shallot, thinly sliced
handful of fresh rosemary, leaves removed
olive oil

Directions

Start by making the galette dough. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse in the cold butter until pea-sized pieces of dough formed. Do not overmix. Add the ice cold water slowly until the dough starts to come together into a ball. Remove the dough from the food processor and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Place the dough in the fridge for at least an hour, but preferably overnight.

Slice the tomatoes and place them on a wire rack on top of a baking sheet or paper towels. Sprinkle them with salt and allow them to sit for 30 minutes (or more) while you roll out the dough for the galette crust.

Flour a large work surface. Remove your dough from the fridge and roll it out until it’s 16 inches in diameter. When it’s the right size, carefully remove it from the work surface and place it on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Spread some basil pesto on the galette dough, leaving about 3 inches empty around the sides. You want a generous amount but not too much, because then the bottom crust will be soggy. Place dollops of ricotta on top of the pesto, and then arrange the tomato slices on top. Sprinkle goat cheese and Mozzarella cheese on top of the tomatoes, then sprinkle sliced shallot and rosemary leaves on top. Fold the edges of the crust in. Brush the crust with olive oil.

Bake the galette in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the crust is a deep golden brown and the cheese is slightly browned and bubbling. Remove the galette from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!