Ina Garten’s Tomato and Burrata Appetizer Recipe

Back-to-school season is looming and stores are already stocking shelves with Halloween merchandise, but our minds are still on warm-weather recipes and all of the delicious produce that’s available at the end of summer. And we’re not the only ones plucking fresh cucumbers from our garden, searching for the best way to cook corn on the cob and drooling over vine-ripened tomatoes at roadside farm stands: Ina Garten is showing summer produce some love, too.

In a recent Instagram post, the Barefoot Contessa shared a few of her favorite tomato recipes, just in time for the last few weeks of summer. “For me, tomatoes and corn are the taste of summer, so this week I’m sharing some of my favorite tomato recipes,” Garten wrote in her post.

Garten is definitely no stranger to sharing tasty tomato recipes—she’s taught us everything from the best way to make a caprese salad to how to incorporate fresh tomatoes into a yummy, easy pasta dish everyone at the dinner table will love. And, because tomatoes pack lots of health benefits, including helping prevent heart disease and cancer and supporting skin and eye health, we’re all ears for any ideas on how to get more of them into our diets.

So what are Garten’s favorite tomato recipes? There’s her Summer Garden Pasta, another five-ingredient dish we love, as well as Salmorejo, a Spanish soup she serves chilled and topped with croutons and olive oil. Also on the list? Heirloom Tomato and Blue Cheese Salad and Anna’s Tomato Tart, a savory tomato tart with gruyere cheese and lots of fresh herbs. But the summer tomato recipe that we found most drool-worthy was Garten’s simple Tomatoes & Burrata salad. 

To make this six-ingredient appetizer, gather two balls of fresh burrata cheese, a bunch of heirloom tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and fresh basil, plus olive oil, black pepper and sea salt from your pantry. 

Cut each ball of burrata in half and place the halves, cut-side-down, on four salad plates. Cut each tomato in half and distribute the colorful heirloom tomatoes around each slice of burrata. Dress each plate with drizzles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then sprinkles of salt and pepper. Serve with Garten’s garlic toasts.

Good news: The garlic toasts are easy to make, too. Simply slice a baguette into ¼-inch slices, layer the bread slices on baking sheets, and brush each slice with olive oil. Sprinkle salt and pepper onto each toast and bake at 400 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until crisp. When the toasts are browned, slice a clove of garlic in half lengthwise and rub each slice of baguette with the cut side of the garlic. Serve each plate of heirloom tomato-packed salad with a garlic toast or two and watch your guests swoon.

There’s much to love about this creamy, tangy summer tomato recipe, and we can’t wait to try it with our next tomato haul. And, since there’s no such thing as too much burrata and tomatoes on a summer menu, we just may add our Burrata Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes & Spinach or Open-Face Tomato & Burrata Sandwich to our kitchen rotation in these last weeks of summer.