3 minute tomato and basil pesto salad

Now that the weather is hotting up, it’s the perfect time to start experimenting with salads and making them so much more than iceburg lettuce, cucumber and tomatoes.

The salad takes minutes to prepare and for some reason, the longer you leave it, the flavours just get better so it’s one of those recipes you can leave in the fridge for a couple of days and the flavours just mingle.

I walked into my local market a couple of weeks ago to find the most beautiful looking tomatoes so this salad was really inspired by nature, and it really doesn’t need a lot of dressing up.

The key to this salad is finding fresh, good quality ingredients, even down to the olive oil you use as it really makes the salad taste a million times more delicious.

You can use any mixture, shape, type and size of tomatoes, as long as they total around 600 grams. I went for four different types and colours just to make it visually delicious but the salad works really well with vine tomatoes and plum tomatoes. Tomato, basil and the nutty flavour from the pine nuts works so so well together and although so simple, sometimes the simplest things are the best.

I hope you love this recipe and it joins you over many a hot day this Summer!

Share your recreations with me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag #Jessipes and tag me using @JessipesRecipes in your posts. I love seeing them!

All the healthy best,

Jess x

3 minute tomato and basil pesto salad

 

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Prep time

3 mins

Total time

3 mins

 

Author: Jessica Scott

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 600g fresh tomatoes (I used a mixture of Britsh mixed tomates, green, yellow, orange and red)
• 45g pine nuts, plus a small handful for decoration
• 1 large handful (15 grams) fresh basil, plus a few leaves whole for decoration
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 3 tablespoons (30ml) extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. Cut your tomatoes into bitesize segments. If they're small cherry tomato-size, cut them in half and for larger tomatoes, 6 segments is probably perfect.
2. Scatter tomatoes on a large serving platter ready for the pesto to be drizzled on.
3. Blend the pinenuts, fresh basil, juice of 1 lemon with 1 tablespoon of cold water and 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a food processor or hand held stick blender to make your pesto and blend until smooth.
4. Drizzle the pesto over the tomatoes and enjoy straight away.

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