Greek Tomato Salad

If there aren't good heirloom tomatoes or homegrown I cut cherry tomatoes in half and leave them to marinate in a bowl for 45 minutes to an hour. It improves the texture and taste, and usually I marinate them with minced garlic, olive oil, and a little of my favorite vinegar, but the same technique will work just from the time left in a covered bowl. I learned it from an Alice Waters recipe.

I live in Greece, this simple recipe is a staple, and everyone in the US I've shown it to has loved it. Here, the tomatoes are cut into bite size chunks, and the onion is cut in half, and then in sliced strips - nothing in rounds. Peppers and cucumbers often accompany, as well as oregano, but never mint. The juice mixed with the oil is savored, and soaked up with fresh bread pieces!

Of all the delicious tomato recipes we have made so far this summer, we found this to be simply the best. It may have been the fresh mint and the dried oregano with the feta, but the entire salad was so fresh tasting, we thought we were actually sitting on the beach in Greece.

If you want to make it Italian, use fresh basal and crumbled Gorganzola instead of oregano and feta. Both are great and wonderful with tomatoes from my summer garden. An oldie I've used for years. Very refreshing, I can make a meal of just this with a good chunk of bread.

To look at the photo, you think:meh. Eat it and you'll think it's one of the best, simple salads you'll ever eat. If you have perfect, homegrown tomatoes, this is an excellent way to enjoy them.

My version adds oil-cured olives and a high quality balsamic vinegar. Toasted pine nuts if I'm feeling extravagant. And a capers instead of salt.

Added avocado and English cucumber instead of peppers. Absolutely delicious!

This salad is indeed the bomb! I live in Texas, and my garden tomatoes are coming in fast. So this was a perfect way to use some of them. I have a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes this year that are so sweet, they are like eating candy. I used these to make this salad and it was sooooo goooood! I subbed some fresh basil from the garden for the mint, and dressed the salad with some oregano infused olive oil. It was so pretty to look at, and so delicious to eat. No leftovers...

Nice dish w fresh tomatos from the farmers market. We used an Anaheim pepper instead of a bell pepper.

Sounds angry to me. Be a little more deferential and don’t lecture. There is NO one right way. Your not in Greece! Maybe a family in Greece would use these ingredients if they were readily available. They use what they have we use what we have. It may be quaint in the farm country of Greece but if you introduced one of those people who have never seen a modern California supermarket they might swing away at the possibilities.

This has officially become our go-to summer salad. I made it once, and found myself craving it the next day. I've been making it ever since. Tonight, when we sat down to broiled salmon and this tomato salad, the comments were, "Yay! The tomatoes!" Make it exactly as written. It doesn't get better than this.

Hmmm... I don’t see anywhere that he calls it horiatiki. It certainly is an excellent riff on what most people here stateside have come to expect when they think of Greek style salad....

I made this as written. My husband and I liked it a lot, but agreed that next time we'd use basil instead of mint. Just a personal preference. It was also good the next day.

OMG, we loved this salad! I made it exactly according to the recipe using garden fresh poblano peppers as the pepper. It was so very delicious and we will be taking it to a potluck we are going to tomorrow night. I used 360 Feta from Whole Foods and organic tomatoes from a friend, mint from my balcony and everything else was from my CSA.

Must be good olive oil, too.