Our Simple Tomato Salad Recipe
Yes, this is the tomato salad recipe you’ve been looking for. It’s the best! Fresh tomatoes don’t need much help, so our tomato salad is dressed simply with oil, onion, vinegar, and garlic. The trick is to give the onion and garlic a quick soak in the vinegar before dressing the tomatoes — the vinegar takes the edge off and it all melds together in the most beautiful way. Fresh herbs finish it off, and ta da! You’ll be making this easy tomato salad recipe all summer.
And yes, you could even make it with Cherry Tomatoes! For even more delicious ways to use tomatoes, try our Greek Salad, Caprese Salad, Homemade Tomato Sauce or check out our round up of the 30 Best Fresh Tomato Recipes.
The Trick That Makes This The BEST Tomato Salad
Marinating the sliced red onions and garlic in vinegar before tossing them with tomatoes is what makes this tomato salad so good. Soaking sliced onions in vinegar is a tried-and-true way to mellow their harsh flavor and make them downright pleasant to eat raw. A 20 minute soak is great, but up to an hour is even better.
Simple Tomato Salad Ingredients
Tomatoes
Olive oil
Garlic
Red onion
Herbs: parsley and basil
Salt and pepper
How To Make Tomato Salad
Marinate the onion. Grate fresh garlic (a microplane grater is ideal for this job) and combine it with sliced onions and vinegar. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 20 minutes.
Slice the tomatoes. For slicing ripe tomatoes, which is hopefully what you have, you’ll want to use an extremely sharp knife. Anything less than super sharp will crush the tomato before it cuts it, which will in turn, crush you.
Assemble the salad! Gently combine everything in a big salad bowl that you love, and serve! For even more salad inspo, check out our 30 Best Salad Recipes.
How To Store + Tips
How long leftover tomato salad keeps will depend a bit on the freshness, ripeness and variety of tomato that you use. If you’ve got firm, winter-level romas, you could prep the salad a bit ahead of time. If you’ve got summer heirlooms still sun-warmed from the farmers market, well, the clock is ticking — eat those babies right away! Generally speaking, though, this recipe is best enjoyed as soon as it’s made.
How to choose a ripe tomato: Choose a tomato the same way you’d choose most fruit. You want it to feel heavy in your hand (i.e. juicy), it should be nicely aromatic if you sniff near its stem, and it should have some yield when you gently press it.
- Never store a tomato in the fridge! Store them on the countertop, stem side down.
More Easy Summer Salad Recipes
Tomato Tomahhhto
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