Spanish Tomato and Sardine Salad Recipe for Ensalada de Tomate y Sardinas

This Spanish tomato and sardine salad recipe for ensalada de tomate y sardinas makes a salad from Southern Spain that’s enormously popular in summer, although you can happily eat this salad year-round if you can source good tomatoes. Sweet tomato wedges and sardines are scattered with sliced shallots, salty capers, Spanish green olives, fresh parsley, and a zingy vinaigrette. Serve with crusty sourdough to mop up the tomato-ey salad juices.

If tomatoes are as delicious and as affordable where you are as they are here in Australia right now, and you’re a fan of canned sardines or any canned fish – tuna is also used in this tomato salad in Spain – then try this Spanish tomato and sardine salad recipe for ensalada de tomate y sardinas from Southern Spain. Aside from tomatoes, shallots and fresh parsley, the rest of the salad consists of pantry staples: anchovies, green olives and capers.

I’d planned to share this tomato sardine salad recipe with you when we settled into an apartment rental for two weeks in Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia in the south of Spain way back in 2010, when we launched Grantourismo with our yearlong trip dedicated to slow, local and experiential travel. Terence shared recipes for huevos con chorizo and rabo de toro oxtail stew from Jerez, but I was so focused on the flamenco, markets and churros that I ran out of time.

I’ll tell you more below, but if you’re a tomato lover like I am we have more recipes with tomatoes here, and if you’re a fan of canned sardines or any canned fish, try some of our canned fish recipes, which include this lovely sardine salad with celery, cos, capers, and mustard dressing, my sardine pasta with capers and gremolata, a tuna pasta with scallions, capers and fresh herbs, my Russian mimosa salad, this fancy sardines on toast, and Terence’s ultimate tuna melt.

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Looking for more cooking inspiration? We’ve got thousands of recipes in our archives from around the world from places we’ve lived, worked, travelled, and loved. And note that you can save your favourite recipes in a private account by clicking on the heart on the right of the post. Now let me tell you all about this recipe for a Spanish tomato and sardine salad.

Spanish Tomato and Sardine Salad Recipe for Ensalada de Tomate y Sardinas

I bought a kilo bag of truss tomatoes the other day that were more affordable than I’ve seen them during my entire time back here in Australia. The second I got back to mum’s, I opened the bag and was overwhelmed by the familiar fragrant garden-grown scent that immediately transported me back to my childhood and memories of picking tomatoes off the vine.

Most tomatoes these days don’t smell or taste anywhere near as heavenly as the tomatoes that my grandfathers grew in their backyard vegetable gardens in Sydney’s western suburbs in the 1970s. There’s a reason for that: my Russian grandfather had owned a market garden and my Australian grandfather had been a farmer. Both established vegetable gardens in their backyards.

My grandfathers’ tomatoes might not have been as blemish-free as the flawless tomatoes grown in greenhouses these days, but they were so aromatic, enormous, bright firetruck red, so intensely flavoured, and amazingly juicy that nobody cared what they looked like. These supermarket tomatoes were the closest in taste to my pop’s and papa’s homegrown fruit they almost brought me to tears.

These tomatoes were the deepest red, evenly coloured (rare with cheap tomatoes, especially in winter), and so incredibly sweet and juicy, I cut super-thick tomato slices, spread lashings of butter on the fresh bread that I’d bought, and sprinkled them with nothing more than pepper.

Mum can’t have salt and I dramatically reduced my salt intake after a dangerously-high blood pressure reading and only use salt in pasta water, but the tomatoes were so intensely flavoured that I didn’t miss the salt one bit. I gobbled down the first tomato sandwich so quickly I made another, then went back and bought a second bag of tomatoes.

We’re lucky that Australia is such an enormous country, tomatoes are grown all over and available all year. In sunny tropical northern Australia, tomatoes are harvested throughout the warm dry winters. Back in my grandfathers’ day, tomatoes were seasonal and only available in summer. But, ahh, how we savoured them…

These days, tomatoes are grown year-round, often in more sustainable* greenhouses (*less water is used and it’s used more efficiently), and thanks to much-improved transportation, we can find them even here in the frigid south of Australia – although they don’t always taste as good as these sublime tomatoes, which I’ll be very sorry to finish.

I’ve been eating them sliced on toasted black rye bread rubbed with extra virgin olive oil and a garlic clove, and I’ve been making tomato salads galore, from this Greek feta salad (until we finished the feta) and this Cypriot tomato salad (until we ran out of capsicums), and now in this Spanish tomato and sardine salad. Just a few tips to making this salad

Tips to Making this Spanish Tomato and Sardine Salad Recipe

I only have a few tips to making this Spanish tomato and sardine salad, as it’s super easy and comes together quickly.

Use the Best Quality Ingredients You Can Afford

Times are tough, so use the best quality ingredients you can afford, especially when it comes to tomatoes. There’s no need to splurge on a can of Ortiz sardines – unless you can pick them up at a bargain basement price as I did at an Asian grocery store recently. The owner said nobody bought them and they were close to the use by date!

Make the Salad Vinaigrette

I always make my vinaigrettes and salad dressings in a screw-top air-tight jar such as a mason jar or a clip-top Kilner jar, partly so I can refrigerate any leftovers, as I usually make double what I recommend in my recipes.

So pour the extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar into a lidded jar, add the minced garlic and anchovies, screw the lid on, shake the dressing vigorously, and set it aside.

Assemble the Salad

Prep your veg and herbs, get those jars out of the pantry/fridge, and to a large salad bowl, add the tomatoes wedges, finely sliced shallots, green olives, capers, half the parsley, half the sardines, and half the salad vinaigrette, and gently combine the lot. Tip the salad onto a serving plate and arrange the rest of the sardines on top of the salad.

Serve the Salad

Just before you’re ready to serve, shower the salad with the remaining parsley, pour the rest of the vinaigrette over the salad, sprinkle on a little sea salt, and grind on some freshly cracked black pepper.

Distribute the salad between plates or serve it at the centre of the table with crusty sourdough bread to mop up the juices. It’s also wonderful piled on warmed Turkish bread, toasted sourdough or even homemade croutons.

Spanish Tomato and Sardine Salad Recipe

Spanish Tomato and Sardine Salad Recipe for Ensalada de Tomate y Sardinas

AuthorLara Dunston

Our Spanish tomato and sardine salad recipe for ensalada de tomate y sardinas makes a salad from Southern Spain that’s popular in summer, although we can easily eat this salad year-round. Sweet tomato wedges and sardines are scattered with sliced shallots, salty capers, Spanish green olives, fresh parsley, and a zingy vinaigrette. Serve with crusty sourdough to mop up the tomato-ey salad juices.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Main, Salad, Lunch

Cuisine Spanish

Servings made with recipeServings 2

Calories 360 kcal

Ingredients

 

MetricUS Customary

 

1x2x3x

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar - or apple cider vinegar
• 1 garlic clove - minced
• 2 anchovies - canned, finely chopped
• 4 tomatoes - good quality vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 1 purple shallot - finely sliced, or half a small red onion
• 12 Spanish green olives - pitted
• 2 tbsp capers
• 1 cup fresh flat leaf parsley - roughly chopped
• 120 g can sardines in oil - good quality can Spanish or Portuguese sardines
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp cracked black pepper

Instructions

 

• Make the salad vinaigrette: pour the extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar into a lidded jar, add the minced garlic clove and anchovy, screw the lid on, shake vigorously, and set aside.
• Assemble the salad: to a large salad bowl add the tomatoes wedges, finely sliced shallot, green olives, capers, half the parsley, half the sardines, and half the salad vinaigrette, and gently combine. Tip the salad onto a serving plate and arrange the rest of the sardines on top of the salad,
• Serve the salad: just before serving, shower the salad with more parsley, pour the rest of the vinaigrette over the salad, sprinkle on the sea salt, grind on some freshly cracked black pepper, and serve at the centre of the table with crusty sourdough bread.

Nutrition

Calories: 360kcalCarbohydrates: 16gProtein: 19gFat: 26gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 16gCholesterol: 86mgSodium: 1114mgPotassium: 1075mgFiber: 6gSugar: 8gVitamin A: 4893IUVitamin C: 78mgCalcium: 326mgIron: 5mg

Please do let us know in the comments below if you make this Spanish tomato and sardine salad recipe for ensalada de tomate y sardinas, as we’d love to hear how it turns out for you.