Super Tasty Vegan Bruschetta

Juicy ripe cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar over slices of toasted French baguette.

Bruschetta is an antipasto from Italy consisting of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and topped with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. There are lots of topping variations that can include cheese, peppers and more. I love topping mine with crumbled vegan mozzarella. What I love about Bruschetta is how fresh it is and how inexpensive it is to prepare. Its great as an appetizer, side item or snack. The best thing is that you probably have most of the ingredients on hand

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Essential Steps

1. Rubbing each slice of bread with a fresh garlic clove is key. You will be amazed at how much flavor it adds to the bread.

2. Toasting or grilling your bread until it's super toasted and browned. You want to the bread to have a nice firm toasted layer. This will prevent the bread from getting soggy once it's topped with the tomatoes.

3. Assemble the bruschetta immediately before serving. Assembling ahead of time with make your bread soggy.

About the ingredients

Lucky for me all of the ingredients for bruschetta are staple items in my kitchen. Most of the ingredients I used are from Trader Joe's including the bread. Here are the ingredients:

• 3 cups of diced ripe cherry tomatoes *you can use any tomato you like

• 1 handful of fresh basil chopped

• 1 tbs of extra virgin olive oil plus more for toasting the bread

• 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 1 cup of vegan mozzarella shreds *I used the So Delicious Vegan Mozzarella Cheese and pulsed it in my food processor with 1/2 tsp of salt to make it into crumbs. This is not necessary but I love how light and easy it is to crumble on top of the toast.

• 8 slices of fresh French baguette

• 1 peeled garlic clove

Instructions

1. The first thing you want to do is combine the tomatoes, basil, 1 tbs of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to taste into a bowl. Mix well and add salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

2. Preheat a skillet over medium high heat

3. Next toast the bread by liberally drizzling each slice with extra virgin olive oil and immediately place into the hot skillet oil side down. Toast for about 1 minute. Then liberally drizzle the second side and flip it over and toast the other side until the bread is toasted.

4. Remove the bread from the pan an use a peeled clove of garlic and rub each slice of bread with it.

5. Now top the bread with the tomatoes and sprinkle with the crumble mozzarella.

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I love sprinkling on the crumbled vegan mozzarella. I just pulse it in my food processor with salt first. It adds a nice mildly parmesan lie flavor.