Fresh tomato salad is simply the best summer salad you’ll ever make! This salad is ideal to be served with anything from the grill! It tastes absolutely delicious after it has been marinated for an hour. Can be served chilled or at room temperature!
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Use up the best supply of excellent quality fresh tomatoes from your own garden or from the farmers markets! The recipe for this tomato onion basil salad is uncomplicated!
All you need to do is simply slice red onions, half or quarter the cherry or grape tomatoes and finely chop fresh basil. Toss everything together with little red wine vinegar, EVOO and salt and pepper.
Ingredients Needed
All you need for the salad is shown in below pic:
Tomatoes: Best to use meaty tomatoes like cherry or grape tomatoes. You want to pick tomatoes which have less liquid! If you can’t find cherry tomatoes, ripe roma tomatoes can be used, make sure you cut them into chunks.
EVOO: Your salad is only as good as your ingredients. Along with fresh cherry tomatoes, you need to make sure you use best quality extra virgin olive oil! Not the cheap ones! EVOO will impart optimal flavors to the salad.
Red Wine Vinegar: Go for the best quality red wine vinegar you can get! Red wine vinegar stirred into the salad takes the edge of raw onions!
Herbs: Summer salads are always packed with fresh herbs. Fresh basil leaves are best herb for tomato basil salad. You can include a little bit of fresh mint leaves as well if you like.
How To Cut Tomatoes For Salad?
Cherry Tomatoes – Remove the stem and then cut in half from length wise. Depending on their size you can cut tomatoes into halves or cut it into quarters.
Feel free to mix different colors of tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes, yellow grape tomatoes.
There is no thumb rule on the size of tomatoes you need to have for tomato salad recipe. Any size of tomatoes will work.
Other Tomatoes – If using large tomatoes like roma tomatoes score the tomatoes and cut into half lengthwise. Cut each half into 8 lengthwise pieces. Cut each of those into halves.
Cherry Tomato Salad Recipe (Step-By-Step Pictorial)
Chop cherry tomatoes into halves.
Slice red onions.
Place chopped tomatoes, sliced red onions in a salad mixing bowl.
Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Season with crushed peppers and salt to taste.
Sprinkle fresh chopped basil leaves (I used a mix of mint and fresh basil leaves).
Gently toss everything together.
Let the salad sit at room temperature for about an hour before serving.
Serve the salad with grilled chicken or any grilled meat.
TRY OUR OTHER FAVORITE SUMMER TOMATO RECIPES:
Garden Fresh Tomato Bruschetta
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Best Summer Cherry Tomato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 pints fresh cherry tomatoes halved
- 1 red onion thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar good quality
- 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoon fresh basil chopped fine
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place chopped tomatoes, sliced red onions in a salad mixing bowl.
- Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar.
- Season with crushed peppers and salt to taste.
- Sprinkle fresh chopped basil leaves.
- Gently toss everything together.
- Let the salad sit at room temperature for about an hour before serving.
- Serve the salad with your favorite grilled meat.
Video
Notes
- You can use a mix of tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes, yellow grape tomatoes.
- For herbs you any or a mix of – fresh basil leaves, fresh mint leaves, fresh oregano.
- Note: dried herbs will not do justice to the salad. Use only fresh herbs.
Barbara
Easy and delicious. I sliced the onions on a mandolin so they would not overpower the tomatoes. Really good.
Jyothi Rajesh
Thank you very much Barbara, glad to know you loved the recipe!
Joyce G
This was easy and soooo fresh! I have a container grape tomato plant and this was a perfect way to use some of those gems! Thank you!
Jyothi Rajesh
So glad you loved the salad! Thank you!
Morrisa
It was a perfect balance of ingredients. It will work for a great side for brunch, lunch or dinner.
Jyothi Rajesh
So glad you are loving the recipe Morrisa! Thank you!
Bev
Step 3 says to add crushed peppers and salad? What does that mean, crushed peppers are not in the ingredient list.
Jyothi Rajesh
Oops sorry for the confusion, I meant add crushed pepper and *salt to taste. Pepper is mentioned in the ingredient list (it’s the last one – salt and pepper to taste)
Marie
Going to make this right now…Can’t wait!! I have a question about the nutritional information. Is that per serving or for the whole salad? I have a question about the nutritional information. Is that per serving or for the whole salad?Thank you!
Jyothi Rajesh
Marie – it’s values are for single servings. I served the batch for 4.
Ginny McMeans
This truly was the best tomato summer salad. It was so fresh and clean and fast! Thank you!
Jyothi Rajesh
Glad to hear that you liked the salad. It’s our favorite summer salad
Daniela Gerson
Love cherry tomatoes and these pics are awesome!!! Thanks so much for sharing :)! Super inspired to get my cherry tomato game on this summer!
Jyothi Rajesh
Glad you liked it
Marwin Brown
This looks like a light and tasty salad that is so easy to make. Can’t wait to try!
Jyothi Rajesh
Glad you liked it
Jamie
The ingredient Street salt and pepper and then when you put it together it reads crushed pepper and salt is that still black pepper or crushed red pepper?
Jyothi Rajesh
Sorry for the confusion. It is black pepper. There is no crushed red pepper used in this recipe. How it’s called with different terms across the world!
Heidy M`
Your fresh tomato salad was delightful and the flavor was outstanding. One of the things I love about living in a tropical climate is we can enjoy recipes like your fresh tomato salad all year round! This was a keeper and I will be making it again.
Paige
One of my favorite summer salads! This version looks great, and I’ll be sure to try it!
Tatiana
I love how easy it is to make this salad! It’s fresh, flavorful, and just perfect for the summer! Great healthy idea for these quarantine days. 😀
Amanda
I just love this salad! It’s so refreshing and quick to make, which is always appreciate during the summer months. This will definitely make a regular appearance throughout the season.
Dana
This is such a great salad to share at potlucks! It’s incredibly easy to make but it’s also so very refreshing.
Ben
I love how light this salad is and how easy it is to make. I can’t wait to try it.
Monica
This is so fresh and flavorful, and I love that it actually is better made a little in advance – perfect to prep for a summer BBQ so you don’t have to worry about it right as you’re assembling buns and toppings and everything else!