What tomatoes are best for the summer pasta salad?
For best results, use vine-ripened, locally grown tomatoes. If you grow tomatoes in your garden, things will be super easy for you. This is the second year I am growing tomatoes in my backyard for salads and sauces and I could not be happier with the results.
If not, head to your local fruit and vegetable market and pick some nice tomatoes. I like using a variety of tomatoes in this salad – green, yellow, red, orange, striped, etc. Heirloom tomatoes look amazing in any salad and this one is no exception.
Other ingredients that make this salad great
Eggplant is another ingredient that makes this pasta salad really shine. Your typical pasta salad will have olives, zucchini, peppers, etc. And that’s great. But try adding some lightly browned strips of eggplant to your salad instead and you will immediately fall in love with its tender texture and delicate flavor. It complements pasta exceptionally well. Try using the freshest herbs in this salad. There are a lot of benefits to using fresh herbs and one of them is the clean, bright, summery flavor that they bring. Finally, to bring everything together, I went with the white balsamic vinaigrette as the dressing for this salad. This pasta salad is flavorful enough to be dressed with just good extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. But you can make it even better by adding some white balsamic vinegar which adds a touch more of the sweet and tart taste that goes so well with pasta.
