Valentine's Day Salad topped with Tomato Hearts

Start off your Valentine's Day dinner with a festive salad. The Valentine's Day Salad is topped with heart-shaped tomatoes, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives and is served with a homemade tomato vinaigrette.

Valentine's Day is traditionally an incredibly busy restaurant night, and there is nothing romantic about standing in an hour-long line to get a table and if you have kids, getting a baby sitter can be a real challenge too.

So, stay home and cook up a meal that your family will love and enjoy an evening at a restaurant another day.

Let's start with the salad course and make it festive by topping it with heart-shaped tomatoes.

For this Mediterranean inspired salad, I've made a delicious tomato vinaigrette that boasts fresh tomato and garlic flavor. The dressing takes a bit of time to prepare, but it's worth the effort.

But, if you don't want to spend the time, just use your favorite bottled dressing.  Annie's Naturals makes and amazing Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette that makes a wonderful compliment to the feta cheese, olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers in this salad.  It has a slight reddish/orange hue, so it also works well with the theme.

If you are having a romantic dinner and don't want to eat garlic, you can simply leave it out of the recipe. The list of ingredients is simply a guideline per person, and you can adjust the amount of each ingredient based on your tastes.

Salad Ingredients:

Romain and Leaf lettuce
Grape Tomatoes (7 per person)
Kalamata Olives (3 per person)
Cucumbers (2 tbsp. diced per person)
Feta Cheese (1-2 tablespoons per person)

Tomato Vinaigrette Recipe:

(makes 5 tablespoons)

vine-ripened tomatoes (6 small or 3 large)
1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper

Salad Instructions:

Wash, dry, and tear your lettuce into bite-size pieces. Use your judgment on the amount of lettuce per person.

Remove the peel from the cucumber. Use a spoon to scrape out all of the seeds. Discard the seeds. Dice the cucumber into ½" pieces.

Cut Kalamata olives into thin slices.

To make heart-shaped tomatoes:
1. Place grape tomato on the cutting board. Cut at a diagonal across the short side of the tomato.
2. Separate the two halves of the tomato.
3. Pick up one half of the cut tomato.
4. Rotate one-half of the tomato 180 degrees (turn it upside down.)
5. Press the two tomato halves together forming a heart.
6. Finished heart-shaped tomato.

To assemble salads:

Put a serving of lettuce on a salad plate. Top with cucumbers, kalamata olives, and feta cheese.  Carefully pick up your heart-shaped tomatoes and artfully arrange them over the top of the salad.  Serve your festive salads with homemade Tomato Vinaigrette or your favorite salad dressing.  If you want to serve this as a dinner salad instead of a side salad, simply add some grilled chicken or shrimp.

Tomato Vinaigrette Instructions:

Cut vine-ripened tomatoes into quarters. Sprinkle them with a pinch of salt and put into the bowl of a food processor (the food processor pictured at left is a mini one.) Puree the tomatoes until just slightly chunky.  Pour tomato puree into a fine-mesh sieve set over a measuring cup.  Allow the juice to drip down into the cup.  Use a rubber spatula to press on the tomato solids to extract as much juice as possible. Discard the seeds and tomato solids.  You will need ½ cup of tomato juice for one recipe. Discard any extra juice.

Pour tomato juice into a small saucepan.  Add red wine vinegar, oregano, and garlic.  Heat over medium heat, simmering until liquid reduces to 3 tablespoons.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  I like to strain this liquid to remove the chunks of garlic, but you don't have to do this.  The juice will be flavored with garlic but I prefer not to bite into bits of garlic in my salad.  Once cooled, slowly drizzle in the olive oil while continually whisking to create an emulsion (a good blending of a watery liquid with an oil.) Season with salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle over salad.

Print

Valentine's Day Salad with Tomato Hearts

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

6 mins

 

Salad greens topped with heart-shaped tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese, and Kalamata olives are drizzled with tomato & garlic vinaigrette.

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: salad, tomato vinaigrette, Valentine's day recipe

Servings: 2

Calories: 232 kcal

Author: Beth

Ingredients

Salad

• 4 cups Romain and Leaf lettuce
• 14 Grape Tomatoes
• 6 Kalamata Olives
• 4 tablespoons diced and seeded cucumber
• 2-4 tablespoons Feta Cheese

Tomato Vinaigrette Recipe: (makes about 5 tablespoons)

• 6 small (or 3 large) vine-ripened tomatoes
• 1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
• ½ teaspoon oregano
• ½ teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt and black pepper

Instructions

Salad:

1. Wash, dry, and tear your lettuce into bite-size pieces.
2. Cut Kalamata olives into thin slices.
3. Put a serving of lettuce on a salad plate.
4. Top with cucumbers, kalamata olives, and feta cheese.

To make heart-shaped tomatoes:

1. Place grape tomato on the cutting board. Cut at a diagonal across the short side of the tomato.
2. Separate the two halves of the tomato.
3. Pick up one half of the cut tomato.
4. Rotate one-half of the tomato 180 degrees (turn it upside down.)
5. Press the two tomato halves together forming a heart.
6. Carefully pick up your heart-shaped tomatoes and artfully arrange them over the top of the salad.
7. Serve your festive salads with homemade Tomato Vinaigrette or your favorite salad dressing.

Tomato Vinaigrette Instructions:

1. Cut vine-ripened tomatoes into quarters.
2. Sprinkle them with a pinch of salt and put into the bowl of a food processor (the food processor pictured at left is a mini one.)
3. Puree the tomatoes until just slightly chunky.
4. Pour tomato puree into a fine-mesh sieve set over a measuring cup.
5. Allow the juice to drip down into the cup.  Use a rubber spatula to press on the tomato solids to extract as much juice as possible.
6. Discard the seeds and tomato solids.
7. You will need ½ cup of tomato juice for one recipe. Discard any extra juice.
8. Pour tomato juice into a small saucepan.
9. Add red wine vinegar, oregano, and garlic.
10. Heat over medium heat, simmering until liquid reduces to 3 tablespoons.
11. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
12. Once cooled, slowly drizzle in the olive oil while continually whisking to create an emulsion (a good blending of a watery liquid with an oil.)
13. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
14. Drizzle over salad.

If you are making a festive Valentine's Day dinner why not start with these fun Mozzarella Cheese Filled Heart Appetizers.

For the main course, you could serve Chicken Enchilada Hearts

or Chicken Parmesan Hearts.

 If you are looking for other treats or gifts to make for Valentine's Day,
you might like these other recipes too.

I hope you enjoy making this fun Valentine's Day Salad.

I'd love to see pictures of your fun food creations. You can share in our How to Make Fun Food facebook group. It's a great place to ask questions and learn from others.

If you love making chocolate be sure to check out my Chocolate Making Courses at The Sugar Academy.

Have a sweet day,

Beth

• Author
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Beth

Hi, I'm Beth Jackson Klosterboer, a professional chocolatier & baker, cookbook author, and event planner. I love sharing recipes for happy occasions here on Hungry Happenings. I also create easy fudge recipes to share at HowToMakeEasyFudge.com, rice krispie treat recipes at HowToMakeCerealTreats.com, and easy cookie recipes at HowToMakeEasyCookies.com

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