What a delight the Mediterranean style baked fennel gratin is! It’s a quick and tasty side dish to prepare. I also serve it as a main course after a nice plate of pasta, but it’s perfect for dinner with a slice of meat. You can prepare them quickly, raw, in less than 15 minutes they’re cooked. The trick for fast cooking is to prepare thin slices and place them directly on the oven tray, which distributes heat quickly and cooks them softly in no time. I enriched them with a bit of cherry tomatoes and olives, but if you don’t have them, you can easily prepare just the fennel with the same seasoning, and they will still come out fabulous. I love fennel and serve them even during the holidays, great in a salad with smoked salmon. What do you need to make baked fennel gratin? A bit of breadcrumbs, parmesan, capers, pine nuts, oregano, and in a flash, we will have a delicious dish to enjoy. So, let’s get cooking together.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 2-4
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter, and Spring
Ingredients for Mediterranean Style Baked Fennel Gratin
- 2 fennel
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 10 baked black olives
- 0.35 oz pine nuts
- 10 salted capers
- 5 teaspoons breadcrumbs
- 3 teaspoons parmesan
- as needed extra virgin olive oil
- as needed salt
Tools to Prepare Baked Fennel Gratin
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Baking tray
- 1 Parchment paper
- 1 Small bowl
Steps to Prepare Mediterranean Style Baked Fennel Gratin
Clean the fennel, remove any damaged parts, wash them, and cut them into quarters, first halving and then each half into 2 to get fairly thin slices, about a quarter inch.
Line the baking tray with parchment paper. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Arrange the fennel slices on top without overlapping. Season with salt and a little oil.
Wash and quarter the cherry tomatoes, place them in a bowl, season with oil and salt, oregano, add the olives, rinsed capers, and pine nuts, then about 3 teaspoons of breadcrumbs and 2 of parmesan, and mix.
Distribute the cherry tomatoes over the fennel in the tray, then in the same bowl add a little more breadcrumbs, parmesan, and oil and spread over the fennel.
Bake in a preheated fan oven at 390°F for about 15 minutes. If you notice the breadcrumbs browning too much, lower the temperature to 355°F. Remove from the oven and enjoy, delicious oven-cooked fennel.
