All-American Cherry Tomato Salad

All too often, cherry tomato salads are watery and bland. We devised a few simple steps to address these problems and make cherry tomato salads appealing. Here’s what we found out:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Cubing the cheddar cheese so that it’s the same size as a quartered cherry tomato ensures equal amounts of these ingredients in every bite.
• Tossing the quartered cherry tomatoes with salt and letting them sit draws out their excess moisture, preventing the salad from suffering a watery fate.
• Don’t throw away the excess tomato juice! When reduced and simmered with vinegar and a shallot, its concentrated flavor makes a potent base for the vinaigrette that gives our salad a double tomato flavor.