My Easy Trick for the Absolute Best Tomato Toast (I Promise It’ll Taste 20x Better!)

Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn
Andrea Rivera WawrzynAssociate Food Editor, The Kitchn
Andrea is the Associate Food Editor at The Kitchn. She is a lifelong Chef and full-time clog enthusiast. Her passions include grabbing more books at the library than she can read in the time allotted and the relentless pursuit of the perfect burrito. She lives in Salem, MA with her husband and two cats.
published Jul 24, 2024
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photo of tomato toast with mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes, and smoked salt on a blue cutting board
Credit: Photo: Alex Lepe; Food Styling: Debbie Wee

I love tomato toast. I’ll start my day with a thick slice of rustic bread topped with a hunk of tomato any time of the year, but summertime is when tomatoes truly shine and when I start subsisting on a diet that is at least 40% tomato. 

One seemingly unavoidable hazard of good tomato toast however is sogginess. There are a few things that can lead to the unpleasant experience of eating soggy toast: choosing bread that’s too delicate, layering ingredients incorrectly, or adding additional wet ingredients, like a splash of vinegar. The main culprit, however, is typically the star of the show, the tomato itself.

Slicing tomatoes generally have a pretty high water content. This goes double for very ripe summertime tomatoes, which can be particularly juicy. While a thick slice of a sweet peak-of-the-season heirloom tomato is more than welcome on any toast or sandwich I’ll ever make, the fact of the matter is, it’s contributing a ton of unwelcome moisture and has the potential to turn even the most carefully constructed toast into a damp mess.

Why You Should Be Salting Your Tomatoes

Luckily, there is a quick step you can take to keep tomato moisture at bay and make a more well-seasoned toast (or sandwich) at the same time — salt the tomatoes. Salt draws the moisture out from tomatoes and seasons them at the same time. If you start the toast-making process with slicing and salting the tomatoes, enough moisture will have drained away by the time you’re ready to add them to the toasted bread that you won’t even miss a beat. And once you’ve tasted toast with a well-seasoned tomato, there’s no going back.

Credit: Andrea Rivera Wawrzyn

How to Salt Tomatoes

  1. Slice your tomato. Make sure to use a serrated knife!
  2. Lay the slices on a paper towel-lined plate. The paper towels will help pull the moisture away from the sliced tomato as it weeps.
  3. Generously sprinkle the tomatoes with salt. I like kosher salt, but use what you’ve got.
  4. Let the tomato slices sit. For at least 5 minutes while you toast the bread and add any condiments or spreads.

Recipes to Try with Salted Tomatoes

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Tips & Techniques