This dish is all about summer. Summer dishes are best served cold. This cold salad uses summer corn and other seasonal vegetables like tomatoes and green beans, and it’s a great make-ahead salad. Cold salads travel well. It’s all about easy picnic-like food in the summertime.

I made this dish and another salad (that would be Part 2 tomorrow) for a baby shower last weekend. I am becoming an expert baby shower hostess, and I’ve learned that easy food is best. Colorful helps too. The ingredients for this dish are scaled to feed an army or a football team. I prepared it for about 30 people. You’ll need to scale it down for less, it doesn’t need to be exact.

In my opinion, they key to this dish is the dressing. Without dressing, it’s just corn + green beans + tomatoes in a bowl. The dressing brings out the sweet of the corn and blends it all together.

Summer Corn Salad

Ingredients

(makes enough for 30 as a side dish)

• 5 pounds (!) corn (I used a frozen bag of organic corn from Costco. Corn on the husk would be great but I didn’t want to shuck and boil so many ears.)
• 2 pounds green beans, stems cut off
• 3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 C feta cheese crumbles
• 2 T sugar
• 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper
• 4 T evoo

Instructions

• In a large stock pot, bring water to a boil, filled 2/3 with water.
• Add corn to water and boil about 5 minutes until soft. No thaw time necessary.
• Remove corn from water with slotted spoon but do not discard water. Place corn in collander and let water drain for about 10 minutes in the sink. I pressed the water out with my hands. They retain a lot of water.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine tomatoes and corn.
• Add green beans to water and boil about 8-10 minutes, until the color is bright green and they are soft.
• Remove pot from stove and drain water from green beans in collander.
• Once green beans have cooled, cut them in thirds.
• Add green beans to the corn/tomato bowl.
• If you aren’t serving immediately, refrigerate after this step.
• One hour before you are ready to serve, add feta to the bowl and stir.
• In a separate small bowl, combine EVOO, salt, pepper and sugar and whisk until sugar dissolves.
• Pour over the corn mix and stir well.
• Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I really love the feta in this dish. It gets all creamy with the dressing and is like an added creaminess in the crevices of the tomatoes and through the corn. The sugar really brings out the sweet of the corn, and the pop of the green beans compliments the crispness of the corn too.

It’s just a nice and light summer salad!