Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread is an easy dinner party appetizer that you can serve all Fall and holiday season long! This flatbread is easy to make and includes just a few ingredients that pop with color. Perfect for your next dinner party.
Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread
Whenever I’m serving pasta at a dinner party, I love to start the evening with a flatbread. The expected choice here is always salad. And while I love salad, to me, there is a beautiful communal aspect of flatbread that is a more convivial way to start an intimate dinner party.
Not only does flatbread feel a little unusual here, but the type of flatbread I’m serving always gets everyone’s attention: Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread. When that flatbread comes out of the oven, piping hot, cheese melting all over, and your guests see roasted grapes on the top of it? That tends to be a conversation starter.
I roast the grapes here before baking them on the flatbread, which concentrates their flavor and makes for these sweet little bursts when you take a bite. You could do just grapes here, but what I love to do is mix it up with tiny little glossy cherry tomatoes in a mixture of colors. The combination of colors and flavors are both simple and really appealing.
The roasted grapes and tomatoes bake on pizza dough rolled thin and layered with slices of fontina. Fontina is a glorious melting cheese, and it’s buttery and a bit nutty, so it’s a strong contrast to the tomatoes and grapes. Add a little garlic and thyme, and that’s pretty much it! So simple, yet so elegant.
I like to serve this flatbread as the prelude to my Modern Romantic Vegetarian Dinner Party Menu. The tomatoes on the pizza create a complement to the tomato and roasted red pepper in the romesco sauce for the farfalle, so the dinner menu feels extra considered.
Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread is an elegant flatbread to serve guests any time of year! And any leftovers make for a gorgeous lunch the next day.
Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread
Ingredients
- 1 lb pizza dough room temperature
- 1 cup red grapes
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil divided
- 6 oz tallegio cheese rind removed and torn
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme plus a few sprigs for roasting
- 1 clove garlic finely minced
- 1 tbsp honey
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. On a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, place the grapes and cherry tomatoes. Drizzle with 1 tbsp of olive oil, kosher salt, and a few sprigs of thyme. Roast for 15-20 minutes until he grapes are slightly wrinkled and jammy.
- Turn the oven to 450ºF. Roll or stretch the pizza dough into an oval and place on top of a parchment lined baking sheet. Spread the top of the dough with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Then sprinkle the garlic evenly. Scatter the slices of tallegio on top of the garlic.
- Using a slotted spoon, remove the grapes and tomatoes from the pan and place on top of the tallegio. Drizzle some of the leftover pan juice over top. Sprinkle with half of the thyme.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until the cheese is melted and the dough is bubbling.
- Top with the remaining thyme leaves and a drizzle of honey. Slice, serve, and enjoy!
Make Ahead Tips and Hosting Notes
- The grapes and tomatoes can be roasted in advance for this flatbread. When it’s dinner time, just roll out the pizza dough and assemble!
- You can make this with only grapes and pair with red wine for a wine tasting at home.
- You can slice the grapes and tomatoes or leave them whole to roast. Leaving them whole helps preserve their shape a bit more.
- If the tomatoes release a lot of water when you roast them, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the flatbread. Transferring all that water can leave the flatbread soggy.
- Feel free to add prosciutto on top either before you bake this or after, depending if you’d like the prosciutto to crisp up a bit or not.
- I used store bought pizza dough, but feel free to make your own or buy the flatbread ready made.
- Fontina is delicious here; tallegio would also be a wonderful choice of cheeses.
A Starter for a Romantic Evening
I like to serve this Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread to kick off my Modern Romantic Vegetarian Dinner Party Menu. It goes so well with the Farfalle Romesco with Roasted Butternut Squash on that menu, and makes for a truly memorable menu. The dessert is gorgeous too–a Pomegranate and Vanilla Bean Posset.
If you’d like to add in a few more starters to this menu, try my Simple Arugula Salad with Lemon Parmesan Vinaigrette. That’s one of my most popular salad recipes and for good reason–only a few delicious ingredients come together to make a salad that guests just devour. Or add in my Roasted Pear with Whipped Goat Cheese, Prosciutto, and Pistachio to drive home the Fall notes. Start everyone off with my Roasted Cherry Tomato and Balsamic Soup for a lovely soup course.
Roasted Grape, Tomato, and Fontina Flatbread is a delicious appetizer that can be added in to dinner parties all year long. I can’t wait to enjoy a slice with a glass of wine by the fire this Autumn.
