If you were to travel around the Mediterranean you would find many variations of this salad. It can be made with fresh mozzarella instead of feta. This salad is one of my favorite summer meals; it is light in calories, but satiating. There are many more combinations that use different olives and a wide variety of tomatoes.
If you choose to experiment with the ingredients, you can eat this salad for quite a while without getting bored! I usually substitute mozzarella or asiago, or even fontina cheese for the feta; As far as substituting olives, well there are more varieties and preparation methods I can think of, I’ll usually substitute plain black olive with some Greek ones. Most of the time I get asked about substitutions, and I pretty much tell everyone the same thing: there’s no real science to this, it’s a lot of trial and error.
Difficulty (Scale from 1 to 10): 2
for 4 people
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Ingredients
2 pounds of ripe tomatoes
6 ounces feta cheese
1/2 cup pitted sliced black olives
3 tablespoons (or more) olive oil
freshly ground black pepper – to taste
romano cheese – to taste
6 basil sprigs – coarsely chopped
Preparation
Remove the hearts of the tomatoes with a knife and cut them into thick slices. Then arrange in a shallow dish.
Crumble feta cheese over tomatoes. Sprinkle sliced olives on top and drizzle olive oil over the top of the salad.
Add romano cheese and black pepper to taste, then top with basil.
Serve cold or at room temperature.
Enjoy your salad!