This simple cold asparagus and tomato salad recipe includes sliced red onions, chopped walnuts, and a mustard and white wine vinegar salad dressing.
Serve Asparagus Tomato Salad Cold or Warm
Asparagus and tomato salad is delicious served cold, warm, or at room temperature.
It's a great recipe for preparing ahead of time, because it doesn't need to be warmed up first. It's also a great potluck side dish recipe.
Bonus: Use your favorite salad dressing and skip the step of making the one in this cold asparagus salad recipe.
Wanna up your game? Toast the walnuts in the oven at 350F for 5-7 minutes or until fragrant. Walnuts are hard to tell when they're done cooking and also burn easy, so go by smell. Walnuts are done cooking if they are fragrant.
Why Do You Put Asparagus In An Ice Water Bath?
Throwing hot vegetables into an ice cold water bath is called blanching. Blanching stops the cooking process to maintain crisp, yet tender vegetables. Additionally, the veggies also retain their vibrant color.
What is an ice water bath? It's just ice and water in a bowl. An ice water bath helps the cooked asparagus in this recipe cool down fast.
Variations on Cold Asparagus and Tomato Salad
Don't have walnuts? Try pecans, almonds, pistachios or whatever!
Don't have cherry tomatoes? Doesn't matter - chop any tomato variety for the asparagus salad.
Don't have red onions? Use white or yellow onions instead or just skip this ingredient.
Don't want to make a salad dressing? Cool, dress this asparagus tomato salad with your favorite store bought dressing.
Serving Suggestion
Serve this Asparagus and Cherry Tomato side dish with another salad for a picnic or light meal, or pair it with a complementary main dish recipe like Chicken Paillard or Crab Cakes.
Things In My Kitchen:
- 3 quart mixing bowl - nothing fancy, but flat bottomed, stackable, and stainless steel. Use 'em all the time.
- Benriner wide large slicer - I've tried a lot of mandolin's and this is by far my fav.
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Cold Asparagus and Tomato Salad
EatSimpleFood.com
Fresh asparagus, red onions, cherry tomatoes and a dijon mustard & white wine vinaigrette. This side dish recipe is delicious served cold.
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 15
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: International
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1 bunch (~1 lb) asparagus, trimmed
- 2 cups (~ 10 oz) cherry tomatoes, quartered
- ⅓ cup walnut pieces
- ¼ cup red onion, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 ½ tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 2 ½ tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- pinch black pepper
Instructions
Make the salad dressing:
- Combine white wine vinegar, olive oil, mustard, sea salt, & pepper in a jar. Put on the lid and shake like a mad man until combined.
Make the salad:
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add a little salt. Trim and throw away the rough ends of the asparagus, and cut asparagus in half.
- Place the stem sides in the boiling water for one minute. Add the more tender tips and lightly boil for another minute. Taste it to see if it's as tender as you like.
- Drain and cool the asparagus with an ice water bath if you've got it (this will stop the cooking and also help to retain the bright green color). Otherwise, rinse with cold water.
- Place in bowl and add tomatoes and onions. Gently toss with the dressing.
- Top with walnuts (use any other nut if you don't have walnuts).
- Add salt to taste. Happy Eating! Beckie
Notes
- Wanna up your game? Toast the walnuts in the oven at 350F for 5-7 minutes or until fragrant. Walnuts are hard to tell when they're done, so go by smell. It's done if it's fragrant.
- Don't have red onions? Use white or yellow onions instead.
- Don't have walnuts? Try pecans, almonds, or whatever!
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