TL/DR – Tomato Snap Pea Salad with Basil Pesto Vinaigrette. Take the ingredients for pesto sauce, add balsamic vinegar and toss with cherry tomatoes and snap peas. An easy and most flavorful side salad for a weeknight dinner! –
My neighbor was the inspiration for this. She had too much basil, which is never a bad problem to have, right? My first thought was pesto, but I also had too many cherry tomatoes and snap peas in my garden. I made pesto, added balsamic vinegar and it was ridiculously good.
Yes, I did give myself a high five for making not only a new salad dressing, but also for using my resources!
One tip for pesto: blanch the garlic if you are serving it to picky eaters or to people who don’t want to be garlic breathing dragons for the rest of the day. Chop it roughly, pop it in a very small saucepan with some water and boil it for about 3 minutes, drain and cool, then add to the pesto, (or in this case, to the pesto vinaigrette.)
For another vegetarian pesto recipe, try Pesto with Radishes and Fennel.
Tomato Snap Pea Salad with Basil Pesto Vinaigrette
This recipe combines the ingredients for a basil pesto and adds balsamic vinegar to make an outstanding vinaigrette to toss with halved cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas.
Ingredients
- 1 small clove garlic, roughly chopped and blanched
- 1 c fresh basil leaves, packed
- 4 T extra virgin olive oil
- 2 T balsamic vinegar
- 2 T pine nuts
- 1 T grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 t kosher salt
- 1/8 t ground black pepper
- 2 c cherry tomatoes, halved
- 2 c sugar snap peas, halved
Directions
- Step 1 Blanch the chopped garlic by placing it into a small saucepan with a small amount of water and bringing it to a boil. Simmer for about 3 minutes, drain and set aside to cool.
- Step 2 Place the cooled garlic, basil, olive oil, vinegar, pine nuts, Parmesan, salt and pepper into a small food processor and process until smooth and fairly loose. If it is pasty, add 1 T cold water and process again.
- Step 3 Toss the vinaigrette with the tomatoes and snap peas. Serve immediately. There may be a bit of excess vinaigrette to save for later.
