A light fresh summer salad
This simple tomato salad spotlights the fresh tomato taste of summer. The other ingredients are only supporting actors. Tomatoes cut in wedges are dressed with a little olive oil, garlic. basil, salt and pepper. Then the salad is left to rest so the sweet juice of the tomatoes seeps into the dressing. The result is a fresh, light and delicious simple summer salad.
Fresh ripe tomatoes
This tomato salad is best when made with garden tomatoes, fresh from the vine. Fresh ripe tomatoes from the garden have a taste that can’t be matched.
While garden tomatoes are being harvested it’s usually pretty easy to find locally grown freshly picked tomatoes. If your grocery store doesn’t stock local produce look for a store featuring fruits and vegetables or a farmer’s market. If you are lucky, you have a local farm stand selling their own. Even if you have to go out of your way to get vine ripened fresh tomatoes, it’s worth it.
With juicy ripe tomatoes this tomato salad is a great example of a recipe where “less is more”.
A simple salad made to impress
You can wow the crowd at your next summer “bring a dish” event with this simplest of salads. And if you want to make an already beautiful salad into a showstopper, use heirloom tomatoes like we have in our feature picture. Not only do they look beautiful, but heirloom tomatoes taste great.
Whether you are turning up the color with heirloom tomatoes or using bright red fresh tomatoes, this salad is a feast for the eyes and absolutely delicious.
How can you go wrong?
Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:
| 2 large ripe tomatoes |
| 1 small red onion or less according to taste |
| 3 cloves of garlic |
| 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil |
| several fresh basil leaves torn or cut into small pieces or 1/2 teaspoon dried basil |
| ¼ teaspoon each of salt and pepper |
Olive oil
Whenever you are making a recipe which only has a few ingredients it is important that your ingredients are of good quality. Olive oil is one of the highlights of this salad. If you don’t usually use extra virgin olive oil in your everyday cooking you should splurge on a small bottle of the best olive oil you can afford for this salad. You don’t need much but it does matter in the taste of the salad.
There is no substitute for olive oil in this salad. A blended everyday vegetable oil just doesn’t do this salad justice.
Basil
Fresh
Fresh basil is best for this salad. If you haven’t used a fresh herb in the past, using basil in this salad is a great way to start. In the produce departments where I have shopped, fresh basil is readily available in the produce section during tomato season. You can find a bound together bunch of basil where you find other fresh unpackaged greens and sometimes there is a clamshell type plastic container with a good sized bunch of basil. Not the little plastic containers found year round, but bigger with a lot more freshly picked basil. You may need to look for the larger package, I often see it on an end cap.
Dried
If you are using dried basil be careful of how much you are adding. As you can see in the picture below, dried basil leaves can vary in size depending on how ground up they are before packaging. That means 1/2 teaspoon of one bottle of basil leaves is not the same as is in another. Too much dried basil can ruin this salad. Be conservative. Don’t fill your measuring spoon.
I was going to put the word “scant” next to the amount of dried basil to add but thought I would wait to explain what is means. Scant is a term meaning you should be conservative on that amount being measured. Better said, it’s the opposite of the term “heaping” when used in a measurement. You are going to use that same measuring spoon that is stated but you are either measuring just short of the top rim of the spoon which is scant, leveling it where no additional instruction is given, or heaping the measuring spoon with a mound over the rim of the spoon.
BASIL
In front we have a stem of fresh basil.
In back on the left is store bought dried basil leaves from a bottle and on the right is my homegrown basil leaves that have dried.
Can you guess just by looking which dried basil leaves have more condensed basil oil?
Basil is so versatile that you shouldn’t have any trouble using up what might be left over. To keep it fresh you can put it in a glass or small vase with water. It will stay fresh for quite some time that way. A sprig or two of basil in water will sprout roots and you can plant it! You can preserve it fresh in the freezer or dry it. There is a lot more about that in the next section.
It’s easy to grow basil at home
I grow my own basil and use it fresh in the summer. When the season is over I dry or freeze what I don’t use fresh. It is very easy to grow herbs. They are usually hearty plants. If you want to know more about using herbs in cooking you can check out our post Cooking with Herb. To find out more about growing your own herbs or preserving them you can read about it in Back Porch Herb Garden and It’s Drying Time Again.
But if you aren’t ready to dive in and grow them, you can buy your fresh basil in the produce section of your grocery store. You can make store bought fresh herbs worth the price, by drying or freezing what you haven’t used fresh. Then you have your own stash of herbs year round. They pack a wallop of flavor.
Tomato, onion and garlic
Tomato
You can use any kind of tomato but whatever you use, it should be cut. You need the juice that will seep out into the olive oil. If the skin isn’t cut, there’s no juice.
The heirloom tomatoes I used for my jazzed up tomato salad. So pretty!
Onion
You can use any kind of onion. I usually use sliced red onion because I always have one on hand, but you can use just about any onion, scallion or shallot. Add as much onion as you want in the salad. You know best just by eyeballing the amount.
Garlic
Fresh garlic cloves are the way to go in this salad. It’s a strange thing about garlic. The smaller you chop it, the stronger is gets. Whole garlic cloves are much milder than finely chopped garlic. The more processed it is the stronger it gets. That and other general information about garlic is covered in one of our cooking tidbits All About Garlic.
Bottled garlic is highly processed and is pretty strong. If I didn’t have fresh garlic for this salad I would leave it out altogether rather than put in bottled garlic. For me it’s just too strong a flavor for this salad. The tomatoes are the star of the show. The garlic should complement that flavor not overwhelm it.
This is WHAT TO DO:
This is so easy anyone can make it
This recipe is a cinch to make. You can’t mess it up. If you are new to preparing a salad, just follow along for a very rewarding accomplishment.
Don’t use a metal bowl
When you are making something using ingredients that are acidic in nature, like our tomatoes, you should not use metal for mixing or serving it. The exception to metal equipment of any type would be stainless steel. Stainless steel is good for any purpose in the kitchen. In other types of metal bowls or serving plates acidic ingredients can pick up a “tinny” flavor.
If you are not using stainless steel, use glass, ceramic or pottery to prepare and and serve your salad.
Prepare the vegetables
Cut each tomato into wedges
To do that I cut the top off then cut the tomato in half lengthwise. I cut the halves into quarters and cut two or more wedges from the quarter. Here’s what that looks like.
I cut the top off then cut the tomato in half lengthwise.
Cut the core from of each half of your tomato. If you look closely you may see there is a wedge cut out on the half tomato on the top left. The core is thick, hard and whitish in color. You can’t miss it.
Cut each half, in half again. From that quarter cut 2 or 3 wedges.
Slice, chop and tear
Do you know the difference between slicing. chopping and mincing. We have a post which tells you all about it Slice Dice Mince and Chop.
Thinly slice the onion.
Rough chop the garlic in fairly big pieces. Don’t mince it. It gets stronger when minced. We want a fairly subtle mellow flavor of garlic in the dressing. Don’t worry about eating the raw garlic. If you don’t like it, you can push it aside easily.
Tear or cut up the fresh basil leaves.
Here are our ingredients ready to become tomato salad
The dressing
The only dressing for this salad is olive oil, salt and pepper. The salt is going to help draw the juices from the tomato into the seasoned olive oil and it all just becomes a delicious fresh and light dressing.
Add the olive oil, salt and pepper to your salad bowl. Then mix.
Add the salad ingredients
Add the tomato wedges, garlic, onion and basil to the bowl. Toss all the ingredients together gently until everything is covered in oil.
Best when left to rest
Rest the salad for at least 30 minutes before serving. The resting time is important. That is where the flavor happens.
There are two reasons why you need to rest the salad. The tomatoes need time to render their juice. Also, the flavors of the onion, garlic, and basil have a chance to meld together in the dressing as the salad rests.
If I am letting the salad rest for less than a couple of hours I leave the salad at room temperature. If it is going to be resting for more time, I cover and refrigerate it.
That’s all there is too it! Dig in.
Tomato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 small red onion any onion, scallion or shallot add as much or little as you want
- 3 cloves garlic fresh with large chop
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- several fresh basil leaves or a scant ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
Instructions
Prepare Ingredients
- Cut the tomatoes into wedges
- Cut the onion in thin slices
- Chop the garlic cloves in large pieces.
- Chop, or rip the fresh basil.
- In a stainless steel, glass, ceramic or pottery bowl or baking dish, mix together the olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the tomato, garlic, onion and basil. Gently mix until the tomatoes and onions are all coated in the dressing.
- Let rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. You can leave it at room temperature for a couple of hours. If you are not serving it within that time, cover and refrigerate. You can rest it overnight in the refrigerator if you want.