Three Ways to Jazz Up Your Summer Tomato Salad
Because caprese has been done to death.
When it comes to tomato salads, caprese gets all the attention. Nothing against it—it’s a great salad—but you’ve probably had it countless times. We’ve got three fresh, vibrant approaches to in-season summer tomatoes, none of which involve mozzarella cheese.
Up the contrast with herbs and peanuts
Juicy, ripe tomatoes and richly savory roasted peanuts are a surprising pair that just works. The peanuts anchor the tangy sweetness of the fruits with their deep toastiness, while handfuls of fresh herbs provide a verdant lift. We love the combination so much, we use it in two of our most popular salads.
Our Burmese Tomato Salad—known around the office as “electric tomato salad”—is a take on a Myanmar dish called khayan jin thee thoke. It’s packed with surprising textures and flavor pops: In addition to crunchy peanuts, it has thinly sliced chilies, crispy shallots and a balanced blend of umami-rich fish sauce and zingy lime juice. It’s adapted from a recipe in Amy and Emily Chung’s “The Rangoon Sisters,” where they write that the tomato’s sweet acidity plays off of high-impact, garlicky, sour and salty flavors—“plus,” they add, “it just looks beautiful on a plate.”
For our Tomato Salad with Peanuts, Cilantro and Chipotle-Sesame Dressing, we take a similar approach with a completely different flavor profile, giving colorful heirloom tomatoes a deep savoriness. We took inspiration from Mexican salsa macha, which is made with dried chilies, garlic, nuts and seeds that are fried in oil, then pureed. We skipped the blender and deconstructed the salsa, adding the ingredients directly to the salad—the fried peanuts and sesame seeds add a crunchy texture that contrast beautifully with the meaty tomatoes. Salting the tomatoes and letting them stand deepens their flavor and softens them slightly for extra succulence and juiciness. For an especially colorful salad, use heirloom tomatoes of different hues.
Treat it like a fruit salad
Many of the vegetables we love actually are fruits—"vegetable" is not a biological term, but a culinary one—and tomatoes are the most famous example of this. Despite their savory reputation, they’re surprisingly at home with other fruits. Our Tomato and Watermelon Salad with Basil and Goat Cheese is a salad for the height of summer, when tomatoes and melons are at their peak.
Like caprese, this salad combines fruit and cheese with leafy, green herbs—only it’s much lighter and fresher. The sweet fruit mingles with savory shallot, whose pungency is tempered by a short soak in white balsamic vinegar. Fresh basil (or mint) adds color and herbal notes, and creamy goat cheese brings the dish together with its saltiness and acidity.
Add meat and bread
In this recipe, Italy’s toasty bread salad meets Spain’s bread-and-chorizo dish, resulting in a simple (yet incredibly satisfying) balance of umami, sweetness and crunch. Roasted red peppers add pops of extra sweetness, while shavings of manchego cheese round everything out.
Tossing the prepped tomatoes with a little salt and sugar slightly softens them while drawing out some of their juices, which help soften and flavor the bread. Sourdough works especially well, but any loaf with a chewy, sturdy crumb does nicely.
Don’t mistake fresh Mexican-style chorizo for smoky, garlicky, dry-cured Spanish chorizo—you want the latter. After removing the sausage from the pan, don’t discard the red fat; you’ll want to save it for pan-frying the bread. It gives the crouton-like pieces a deep, savory richness and crispy-chewy texture.
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Claire Lower
Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.
