Arugula Burrata Salad

This simple arugula burrata salad is taken to the next level with creamy burrata cheese, peppery arugula, and a sweet balsamic glaze. With lots of fresh cherry tomatoes, this beautiful salad is perfect any time of year.

This salad is unbelievably easy. And yet, it feels kind of special. The simplicity of this salad lets all the fresh ingredients shine. Peppery baby arugula and sweet cherry tomatoes in a rainbow of beautiful colors. Fresh creamy cheese and a simple extra virgin olive oil dressing, with an easy balsamic glaze that has just the right amount of sweetness. This salad doesn’t need anything fancy to dress it up. It’s simple perfection.

This is a delicious and beautiful summer salad, perfect to use up all your garden-grown cherry tomatoes. But, it’s also my favorite salad for Christmas. I mean… just look at those colors. What a beautiful centerpiece for your holiday table! This is a great side dish with any Italian meal, like sun dried tomato pesto chicken or Italian lemon chicken. It’s also perfect as a main course on a busy weeknight with some sliced chicken breast, salty prosciutto or grilled salmon. If you love the flavors in this salad, try my burrata bruschetta next!

You Will Love This

• This is a delicious summer salad – the perfect way to use up all your fresh garden tomatoes!
• This is a great salad for your holiday table. It’s super simple to make but delicious and beautiful, and full of festive colors.
• I’m keeping it easy with a store-bought balsamic glaze. This is a great salad for when you don’t want to cook.

Ingredients

For this easy arugula burrata salad, you need the following simple ingredients (exact measurements are in the recipe card below).

Ingredient Notes

• Arugula: Peppery arugula is great in this salad, but you could also use fresh baby spinach or spring mix. I used a blend of arugula and baby green lettuce.
• Cherry Tomatoes: Ripe tomatoes from the garden or farmers market really make this salad outstanding. But, this salad is also so pretty for Christmas that I usually still make it in the winter with the cherry tomatoes from the grocery store.
• Fresh burrata cheese: For this recipe, I used an 8-ounce container of burrata that had 4 mini 2-ounce burrata balls in it. You could also use one large ball of burrata and cut it into pieces. If you can’t find fresh burrata, fresh mozzarella cheese would be a great substitute. The little pearls of mozzarella that come packed in water would be my choice. Use any fresh Italian cheese that you love.
• Extra-virgin olive oil: Choose a good quality olive oil, as it is the main dressing on this salad.
• Balsamic Glaze: Store-bought balsamic glaze is perfectly fine in this recipe – you just need a little drizzle. If you’d like to make your own, see the notes in the recipe card.
• I also topped my salad with some toasted pine nuts that I had on hand. This is totally optional, but added a nice crunch!

Instructions

Step One: Prepare the ingredients. Cut all the cherry tomatoes in half. Rinse and dry the arugula. Drain the water off of the fresh burrata cheese, and pat the cheese dry with a paper towel.

Step Two: Toss the olive oil with the arugula to coat the leaves.

Step Three: Distribute the arugula leaves between four salad plates. Top each plate with a quarter of the cherry tomatoes and one ball of mini burrata. (Alternatively, you could plate all the ingredients on one large platter for a family-style salad).

Step Four: Cut the burrata open, and season the salad with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper. Top with a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Storage

This salad is best eaten right away. If you do have leftovers, scoop the burrata off the top, and store the leftover salad and leftover burrata separately in airtight containers in the refrigerator. Eat the leftovers within a day or two!