A simple salad made with sungold tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, red onions and chickpeas. My favourite way to serve this is with slices of fresh sourdough bread, generously buttered.
Sungold tomato and chickpea salad
We are standing at the very edge of summer. It’s the end of August, the peaches and plums are here, the cool mornings. There is softness in the air, the light. The first leaves have begun to colour away from green.
I’m not quite sure I am ready, but it feels like nature is.
We drove out to our local farm the past week, and though the tomato harvest hasn’t been abundant this year, I managed to get some beautiful heirlooms and two boxes of sungolds.
If you’re not familiar, sungold tomatoes are orange-coloured cherry tomatoes, the sweetest you’ve ever had. They taste quite literally like eating sunshine in tomato skin, and grow in heavy clusters on tall plants and are as beautiful as they are productive. I used to grow them in raised beds in my backyard and my son would harvest clusters of them off the plants on warm summer evenings. The larger, colourful heirlooms have been put aside for a galette, but the sungolds went into a very simple salad that I am offering you today.
This salad began life as a simple dish of dressed tomatoes that I wanted to photograph. I love shooting colourful food, and I wanted to capture the vibrant beauty of the sungolds, as I’m never quite sure whether I’ll find more next week when I drive to the farm again. So I set up in my studio, then styled and photographed them, all done in a matter of a couple hours, my creative practice for the day finished.
The sungold tomatoes, styled for the camera
But the sungolds had more to give. Back in the kitchen, I transferred them to a large bowl, and on a whim, started adding a little of this, a little of that, and before I knew it, I had a whole salad made. The family came in the kitchen and enthusiastically dug in taste-tested, until nothing was left for me. I remade it twice since, substituting regular cherry tomatoes for the sungolds and I can report, it’s just as good. I hope you try it.
Recipe notes and substitutions
Beans, chickpeas and lentils are the backbone of my pantry and we eat them constantly, either whole or blended into hummus, pâtés or creamy mashes that offer substance and heartiness to most of my lunches and dinners. Open my fridge on any given day, and you’re very likely to find a jar of home cooked beans or chickpeas, and on the counter there is a bowl with soaking beans every few days.
I don’t find it onerous to cook my own because I have an electric pressure cooker, but in a pinch, when we’re otherwise busy, I’m more than happy to use canned, as their convenience can’t be beat.
Use what’s most handy to you, but as always, quality matters, since there are so few ingredients. With that in mind, some more helpful bits:
the sungolds were terrific in this salad, but when I ran out, I simply made it with regular cherry tomatoes. Keep in mind, however, that sungolds are very sweet, so choose a sweet tomato that you love eating even on its own. You can even make it with regular sized tomatoes just be sure to cut them into 3/4-inch (2cm) chunks first.
if you don’t have pine nuts, you can use sliced almonds instead. The idea is to create a bit of textural interest in the salad, instead of having just soft veg in there.
I used lemon basil from my garden; imagine lemon balm and basil mixed together, and you get lemon basil. It’s incredibly fragrant, and worked really well, but Genovese basil, which is the variety most commonly found at the store or markets, works very well here.
if your tomatoes are on the tart side, use less white whine vinegar, a few drops might be all you need.
So much texture and vibrancy in this simple salad
Sungold tomato and chickpea salad
Yield: 2 servings
Equipment:
cutting board and knife
Ingredients:
260 g chickpeas, drained and rinsed
300 g sungold or other cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 of a small red onion, cut into small dice
10-12 basil leaves
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
2-3 grinds of black pepper from your pepper mill
Method:
To a large bowl, add the tomatoes and the chickpeas, then the diced red onion, and give it a gentle mix. Set aside.
On a cutting board, chop the basil leaves and pine nuts together, until they resemble large crumbs.
To the bowl with the tomato and chickpea mixture, add the basil and pine nut crumbs, the olive oil, salt, white wine vinegar and the 2-3 twists of black pepper. Stir everything together gently, without breaking up the tomatoes too much. Taste and adjust for salt and acidity, if needed.
Serve immediately, with slices of sourdough bread or alongside a cooked grain like millet or quinoa.
If you’re looking for more tomato goodness, try my Roasted cherry tomatoes with white beans recipe. And if you want to make sourdough bread to serve alongside this beautiful salad, find the recipe for my favourite einkorn sourdough loaf here.
Until next time!