A simple and refreshing Stone Fruit Salad is required summer eating! Peaches, cherries, nectarines, and plums are tossed with heirloom tomatoes and basil, then seasoned and served with fresh burrata cheese. It’s a healthy and vibrant side dish, but can easily scale up to serve a crowd. Get your forks ready friends, because it also only takes 10 minutes to make!
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This morning I started working on content for the fall. I know. It’s like the Target seasonal section just took over my brain and I can’t turn it off. But once a planner, always a planner. C’est la vie.
To combat the inevitability of fall’s arrival, I’m happily taking advantage of summer’s best produce while it lasts. Stone fruits! Tomatoes! Bell peppers! Corn! Green beans! So much yum still to be enjoyed, and I’m bringing together my favorites in this stone fruit salad with tomato and burrata.
This salad is required eating right now. It’s a classic combination of juicy peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, and/or cherries with sweet tomatoes, fresh basil, and some sort of soft cheese situation. It’s the perfect no-cook, super quick side dish that will win hearts and minds of all ages. Summer eats really don’t get any better than this.
What is Stone Fruit?
Stone fruits are fruits that have a pit (or “stone”), and you’re definitely familiar with the most common varieties like peaches, cherries, and nectarines. Stone fruits don’t ripen well “off the vine” so speak – I’m sure you’ve picked up a hard peach or two at the store, hoping it will ripen on the counter and then been, well, supremely disappointed. Stone fruits have a short season and they’re best enjoyed super fresh – like farmer’s market or farm stand fresh.
Stone Fruit Salad Ingredients
- 1 pound stone fruits: use whatever you can find that’s fresh, ripe and juicy, and local if you can. Peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries, mango, etc.
- 1 pound tomatoes: again, whatever varieties you love that are fresh and perfectly ripe. Everything from heirlooms to sweet cherry tomatoes will be delicious.
- Fresh basil: as much as you can stand. There’s no such thing as “too much basil”
- Burrata cheese: salty, soft burrata cheese makes for a delicious bite. If you can’t find burrata, fresh mozzarella balls, like bocconcini, are a fine substitute.
- Good quality olive oil: just a splash or two. This salad needs very little dressing – in fact, it needs none at all. For years I smothered my tomato salads in balsamic vinegar or reduction, until I realized that ripe fruit at the height of the season needs none of that nonsense! You’re hiding all the flavor behind the dressing.
- Sea salt and cracked black pepper: to season to taste.
How to Make Stone Fruit Salad
Stone fruit salad is so easy that I’m honestly embarrassed to call it a recipe, but here we are. Because this recipe is so incredibly simple, focus not on technique or process, but on getting the freshest, best quality fruit that is available to you within your budget. Opt for equal parts stone fruit and tomato for a great balance of flavor. Salty burrata is an excellent flavor contrast, but if you can’t find it, substitute fresh mozzarella, either in bite-sized balls or diced.
- Dice the fruits into uniform bite-sized pieces – about 1″ each.
- Toss in a large bowl with a salt, pepper, and a handful of fresh basil leaves.
- Spoon a few big heaps of salad onto a plate, and then nestle a piece of burrata into the salad.
- Drizzle with a splash of good quality extra virgin olive oil, a bit of flaky sea salt and cracked black pepper.
Tips for Making this Recipe Perfectly
- Choose perfectly ripe stone fruits. Overripe fruit will be too soft (but don’t toss it – save those for a cobbler, crisp, galette, popsicles or a smoothie!). Underripe fruit will be a bit to firm and not quite sweet or juicy enough. Ripe stone fruit feels firm, but gives until gentle pressure, and is very aromatic. A fresh peach will smell like, well, a fresh darn peach.
- Similarly, use ripe tomatoes at the height of sweetness. Go as local and fresh as you can get your hands on. Heirloom tomatoes are boss here. Grocery store tomatoes might be right depending on how far they’ve traveled, but in general they’re shipped green and ripen over thousands of miles vs. on the vine. So they’ll be less sweet, and likely a little mealy. If you must go the conventional route, cherry and grape tomatoes are great.
- Layer the seasonings. Toss the salad with salt and pepper, and then season with just a little more salt before serving.
- Use good quality extra virgin olive oil for best flavor. But one bottle of the good stuff, and use it to season salads all summer. A little goes a long way.
More Stone Fruit Recipes
- Grilled Peach Salad
- Oven Baked Halibut with Peach Salsa
- Cherry Pie Smoothie
- Stone Fruit Sangria
- Peach Panzanella
Did you make this Stone Fruit Salad? I’d love to know how it turned out! Leave a comment and a rating below.
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Stone Fruit Salad with Tomato and Burrata
Description
Ingredients
- 1 lb ripe stone fruits, peaches, pears, plums, necartines, cherries
- 1 lb ripe tomatoes
- ½ c loosely packed basil leaves
- ½ teaspoon maldon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
- 8 oz fresh burrata cheese
- 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, divided
Instructions
- Halve the stone fruits and remove the pits. Dice into 1″ pieces and place into a salad bowl.
- Halve and/or dice the tomatoes into 1" pieces and toss into the bowl with the diced stone fruit.
- Top the stone fruits with the fresh basil leaves, salt, and a pepper. Toss.
- Divide the salad between four plates. Nestle a piece of burrata cheese into each salad. Drizzle each salad with half a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and serve immediately.
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