Mixed Tomato and Cannellini Bean Salad

Summer is slowly approaching, and I mean slowly approaching. After all, we live in Wisconsin, and when summer approaches, everyone gets excited. You cannot blame us, we only get a few months of warm weather up here in the great white north. Summer screams a few things to Wisconsinite, one being brats on the grill, two being anything grilled for tailgating, and three, would be really fresh salads. That’s where I am coming into the scene.

This past week, my coworkers decided to get together and tailgate for our annual Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. The theme was brats, and more of a brat rating/tasting. We purchased five different brats, two a piece, and grilled them to perfection. The goal was to judge them by taste, texture, and flavor, not knowing where the brat was coming from. It was great. Plain and perfect grilling, and great brats at that. Realizing that we would be consuming two brats a piece, I decided it would be nice to throw in something fresh, flavorful, and healthy. This is where the mixed tomato and cannellini bean salad came into play.

If you are looking for a new salad, and one that is comforting in many ways and packed with textures and flavor, this is the one.

Ingredients:

• 18 mixed organic tomatoes (large cherry size), sliced in half
• 14 oz can of cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
• small handful of fresh basil, torn
• 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 lemon, zest only
• generous pinch of salt

There is not a whole lot to be prepared here, which is great. This is one of those throw together salads, and one you could potentially have on the table in less than five minutes, however, the longer you let it set, the better the flavor.

Take all of your ingredients, mix into a bowl, and let sit at room temperature for at least 1-3 hours. Plate into your serving dish, and go at it.

As stated, the freshness just screams summer time. The juiciness from the tomatoes, and the creamy flavor of the beans on top of the great flavor of basil really makes this fresh and healthy.

The big question now is what is your favorite summer time salad?