This tomato corn salad combines colorful, perfectly ripe summer veggies with a simple dressing. This is an easy but super flavorful side dish for a summer barbecue or a potluck!

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When corn season comes around, I can’t get enough! I love to enjoy the sweetest corn straight on the cob (generously slathered with butter and sprinkled with butter!), but I also like to mix things up and use it in soups, risotto, and fried rice, just to name a few favorites.

Many years ago, I was reading Delancey, a memoir about the opening of a pizzeria in Seattle written by blogger-turned-author, Molly Wizenberg. In one chapter, she shares the recipe for a corn salad they served at the restaurant during their opening week, which happened in late August. After months of dreaming about it, she and her husband were finally serving food to paying customers. As novices in the restaurant world, they had to learn their trade fast. Molly was responsible for the first courses, and she created simple salads made with the freshest market produce—the kind of dishes they would eat at home.

Wizenberg’s memoir was sprinkled with unfussy recipes, and among those, she shared one for an easy tomato corn salad. Reading her recipe, I realized I had everything on hand to make the salad, so we tried it that very night and fell in love with its fresh and generous taste. It’s the kind of salad that’s so simple but so delicious you can’t believe you didn’t come up with it yourself!

Over the years, I’ve adapted the recipe to make it my own: I use my own homemade lemon shallot vinaigrette in the recipe because I always keep a jar of it in the fridge. Having a versatile homemade dressing on hand guarantees you can put together a quick salad such as this one, and making the dressing ahead of time allows its flavor to get better over time. The dressing keeps well for at least two weeks! All you’ve got to remember is to take the jar out of the refrigerator for 5 to 10 minutes before using the dressing because the olive oil solidifies when refrigerated.

Of course, at the core of this recipe is the produce. Try to use the freshest, best corn and tomatoes you can find. Bicolor sweet corn is, in my opinion, the best one to use for this salad. It’s juicy, super sweet, and beautifully colorful, too! 

To quickly prep the corn kernels, I use the miraculous microwave method. This life-changing method also steams the kernels, cooking them just so they’re crunchy but still super juicy—just what you need for this salad! Refer to my instructions, below, to learn how to microwave and shuck ears of corn in under three minutes.

As for the tomatoes, you can quite simply use whichever tomatoes you have on hand. Cherry tomatoes, garden tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes: all tomato varieties will produce an amazingly delicious tomato corn salad, as long as they’re perfectly ripe and juicy.

A final, extremely flavorful touch to this easy tomato corn salad is the herbs. It’s simple: use any variety, mix them up, and use a lot. In the summer, you can grow your own herbs, or get them for cheap at the market. I find that the more herbs you use, the better this salad becomes.

My favorite herbs to use in this tomato corn salad are dill, basil, and chives. Dill adds an incredible aroma to the salad, basil a leafy touch, and chives a sharpness that balances all those flavors out. If you don’t have these varieties on hand, you can use anything else: Italian parsley, coriander, oregano, and marjoram would all work well in this tomato corn salad. You can’t go wrong!

After making this easy tomato corn salad once, you won’t need to refer to the recipe again. Simply keep a jar of that dressing on hand, toss everything together, and serve! Shouldn’t all summer salads be that easy?

How to Shuck and Perfectly Cook Corn in Under Three Minutes (Microwave Method)

You can quickly and easily remove the husk and silk from a corn cob and perfectly cook its kernels in under three minutes. Sounds difficult to believe? Once you try the microwave method to shuck and perfectly cook corn, you won’t ever go back. This method is perfect when you need to use fresh corn kernels in a recipe or when you crave a single corn on the cob.

1. Cut the stock end of the cob, making sure to remove one or two rows of kernels from the bottom of the cob. This creates an opening in the husk, which will allow the cob to slip right out once it’s cooked.
2. Place the cob on a plate, then microwave for 2 minutes and 45 seconds at maximum power. During this cooking time, the humidity in the husk and silk will turn into very hot steam, separating it from the corn, allowing you to shuck it quickly.
3. Once the cooking time is done, use a clean kitchen towel to grab the hot corn cob by the pointy end. Push the cob out of its husk, starting from the pointy end and all the way down, until the clean cob slips out. You’re done! You can now enjoy corn on the cob, or cut off the kernels and use them in the recipe.

Note: Corn size and microwave power vary widely, so you might need to adjust your cooking time. My microwave is a 950W model and the 2m45s timing works every time. If your microwave is more powerful, start with 2 minutes and test pushing the corn out of its husk. It should come out fairly easily. If you can’t push it out, you need a longer cooking time. On the contrary, if your microwave is a less powerful model, your cooking time could reach 4 minutes. Do a couple of tests and you’ll quickly figure out the timing that works for you!

Watch how to shuck corn in the microwave in this short video:

How to Perfectly Boil Corn

If you don’t have a microwave, you can, of course, cook corn the traditional way: by boiling it. Here’s how to perfectly boil fresh corn on the cob.

1. Remove the husks from the corn, being careful to pull out the fine strands of silk, too.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Make sure the pot can hold a whole corn cob. If it doesn’t, you can cut the cobs in half lengthwise.
3. Drop the corn in boiling water. Cook, uncovered, until the kernels are tender and golden, about 5 minutes.
4. Remove the corn from the water, pat dry, and use as instructed in the recipe.

How to Grill Cooked Corn on the Cob

To grill the corn, preheat a barbecue to high or place a grill pan over medium-high heat. Brush or spray the shucked corn with olive oil, then place it over the grill. Since you’ve already microwaved or boiled the corn, there’s no need to cook it further, you only want to give it some color and flavor from the grill. Turn frequently until the whole corn is nicely colored. Cut the kernels off the cob, then use as instructed in the recipe.

 

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