You need a grand total of 5 ingredients for this salad but there's a hitch. They need to be the BEST of ingredients. Fresh from the garden tomatoes, a beautiful olive oil, a great *white* balsamic vinegar, a ripe lemon and creamy goat cheese.
When I was younger (much younger) I openly and unabashedly judged people based on whether they liked tomatoes or mushrooms. If someone liked these things, they were obviously the type of person to be avoided. They were ... tomato and mushroom lovers. I genuinely found this sort of person to be distasteful. Gross, if you will.
It's amazing the sort of judgements we make when we're kids. Now that I'm older and somewhat more sensible, I no longer feel this way and can fully acknowledge what a ridiculous thing it was to judge people based on whether or not they liked tomatoes.
Tomatoes are great.
Mushroom lovers on the other hand are obviously still subject to ridicule. They're generally the sort you should be suspicious of. Everyone says so.
I turned around on tomatoes when I first became obsessed with growing heirloom varieties several years ago. For the first year or two of growing them, I still didn't really like tomatoes unless they were in a sauce or a squeeze bottle. Now I love them.
This is the easy 2 minute tomato salad I've been making every night since tomatoes came into season. There's no dressing to mix, no special treatment. It's just a bowl of tomatoes. When I have it on hand, which admittedly is pretty much always, I also add a scoop of goat cheese with lemon.
If you're looking at a glut of tomatoes and an empty dinner plate, this salad is for you. There are no mushrooms in it. I probably didn't need to tell you that.
Super Fresh Tomato Salad.
- Chop up approximately 2 cups of tomatoes into bite sized pieces.
2. Give a good squeeze of lemon into 2 ounces of goat cheese or ricotta. (I've only given a measurement because I know someone will want one - just use as much cheese as you like.) Top with grated lemon rind.
3. Add cheese and tomatoes to a big bowl. Drizzle with good olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and shredded basil. The basil is totally optional.
You're done. That's it. Serve as a meal with a crusty heel of bread or as a side dish.
It's completely ridiculous to have a recipe for this. It's chopped tomatoes with olive oil and white balsamic vinegar on top. Throw on some cheese with lemon. But I know people like actual recipes so here it is.
2 Minute Fresh Tomato Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups tomatoes chopped
- 4 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
- 2 ounces goat cheese can substitute with ricotta
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- lemon zest
- 6 leaves basil optional
Instructions
- Chop your tomatoes into bite sized pieces and set in bowl.
- Add lemon juice and zest to your soft cheese of choice. Add to bowl.
- Shred basil by hand and place on tomatoes.
- Drizzle everything with olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.
- Top with a sprinkling of sea salt and let rest for 5 minutes to extract juices from tomatoes.
Nutrition
I was just kidding about the mushroom lovers. I have nothing against you.
I mean it's not as though you like ... green peppers.
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I made a variation of your recipe. I had thyme and wild mushroom infused olive oil. Used lime juice as it was what I had on hand and added some fresh thyme. I had feta cheese so used it instead of goat cheese and I loved it and it was a big hit with the family. Next time I get groceries I will be sure to get some goat cheese and try your original recipe, but this is a great alternative and my son in law wants me to add peppers and olives. Olives....yuck have never been able to like those. Closest to liking them was eating them on a vegetarian pizza and if there weren’t so many people around I would most likely have picked them off! Thanks for such a great easy and adaptable recipe. I will enjoy it for the rest of the summer.
Six years ago I moved to the traditionally Italian area of my city. I now find myself making a kind of Caprese salad every week or so in the summer. Fresh tomatoes, good olive oil from the italian specialty store, fresh Mozz from the local store and Basil from my garden, sometimes a sprinkle of basalmic vinegar. Simple and fresh and an easy dinner on a hot night. Apparently if you live in an ethnic area long enough, the ethnic seeps right into your skin. (I'm mostly German and French genetically)
OH it definitely does, lol. I just know if I lived in Chinatown I'd be eating chicken feet in no time. For real. ~ karen!