A basic tomato basil salad prepared with peeled tomatoes, to serve as a side dish with your main course meal.
Peeled tomatoes are useful if you have picky eaters at home.
Global Food Recipes
with Spices and Herbs
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Ingredients
You will need a few handfuls of ingredients to make my peeled tomato salad.
- Tomatoes — Pick your favorite tomato variety. Experiment with colorful varieties such as yellow, orange, and purple black tomatoes. My uncle, who makes this salad all the time, prefers bull's heart tomatoes. Get larger varieties because smaller tomatoes are harder to peel.
- Basil — Fresh basil is the key. Italian basil is preferred, but you might want to switch flavor profiles, with an Asian variety such as Thai basil, sweet basil or holy basil.
- Salt & Black Pepper
- Olive Oil — I like to use high quality olive oil. Look out for cold pressed olive oils.
Process Overview
Step 1
Rinse your tomatoes well.
Blanch your tomatoes in boiling water for about 30–60 seconds, or until the skin cracks.
Place immediately into a bowl with ice water to stop the cooking process and to cool.
Step 2
Peel tomatoes one by one with your fingers. The peel will just go off easily after the blanching process.
Cut the tomatoes small to desired size.
Step 3
Place tomatoes into a container, a serving bowl or a plate.
Season with salt and black pepper, sprinkle olive oil over the tomatoes.
Sprinkle freshly chopped basil over your tomatoes just before serving.
📖 Recipe
Peeled Tomato Basil Salad Recipe
Ingredients
To blanch and peel tomatoes
- 6 Tomatoes medium
- Ice Water
For the Salad
- ¼ Teaspoon Salt
- ⅛ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground optional
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil cold pressed preferred
- few Basil Fresh
Instructions
- Rinse tomatoes to get rid of impurities.6 Tomatoes
- To peel the tomatoes, keep a pot with water to boil and place fresh tomatoes in for 30–60 seconds, or until the skin shows some cracks. This is called blanching.
- Take out the tomatoes and place them into a bowl with ice cubes and icy water to stop the cooking process immediately. That way the tomatoes will cool off fast too.Ice Water
- Peel tomatoes with your fingers. The skin should come off easily now.
- Cut peeled tomatoes into slices or quarter them.
- Place tomatoes into a serving bowl or plate. Sprinkle salt, black pepper, olive oil, and freshly chopped basil leaves over that.¼ Teaspoon Salt, ⅛ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground, 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil, few Basil Fresh
- You can mix it up, but the tomatoes might get a bit mushy. Otherwise, just serve at room temperature or cooled.
Notes
- If you use store-bought tomatoes, which might be treated with pesticides, I recommend that you place them into a large bowl with water and a dash of vinegar or a tablespoon of citric acid. Both, vinegar and citric acid won't harm your health but take off all pesticides from your tomatoes. It comes clean off the tomato skin.
- If you use larger tomatoes, cut them smaller or to your preferred size. It's easier to eat bite-sized pieces.
Equipment
- Sauce Pan to blanch the tomatoes
- Mixing Bowl for the ice water
- 8" Chef Knife
Nutrition
Serving
We enjoy this salad as a side dish with most main course meals.
In France, during the summer months, we tend to prepare it every day and serve it with other vegetable side dishes when it gets hot.
It's an inexpensive budget-friendly dish, it's refreshing and filing as well.
Paul loves this salad sometimes on its own, just like the Caprese tomato mozzarela basil salad, when it's hot outside.
I absolutely adore it with other daily pasta and risotto meals. I serve it with a cottage meat pie too or with lemony chicken piccata.
It's great for a barbecue, too, since tomatoes with basil and olive oil pair well with most grill meats.
Storing
You can place your tomato salad on a serving platter and cover it with a cling foil wrap if you are planning to take it to a tailgating or BBQ party. That way it stays fresh.
You can keep leftovers in your fridge for a day or so if you store it in an airtight container.
The salad shouldn't be frozen, there is no point in doing so.
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