Skip to main content
Salad

Tomato and Cream Cheese Salad

A salad of sliced tomatoes topped with cream cheese and green peppers, served on lettuce with French dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and lettuce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,655 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato and Cream Cheese Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tomatoes

  1. Wash, peel, and slice the tomatoes into ½ inch thick slices.

  2. Drain the slices well and wipe off each slice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread a thick layer of cream cheese mixed with chopped green peppers on top of each slice.

  2. Place a round of pepper in the middle of each slice.

  3. Serve on a bed of crisp lettuce with French dressing.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cream cheese + lettucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Tomato + cream cheesetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together446 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the base slices and fresh, juicy body for the salad.
Cream cheese
Adds a rich, creamy layer that contrasts with the acidic tomato.
Chopped green peppers
Add crisp texture and a fresh, slightly bitter bite to the cheese layer.
Crisp lettuce
Gives a cool, crunchy bed that holds the tomato slices.
French dressing
Adds sweetness, acidity, and moisture to finish the salad.

The step that matters

Drain and wipe the tomato slices. Tomatoes release water as they sit. Excess moisture thins the cream cheese and makes the salad soggy, so the slices should be dry before topping.

Swap the lettuce

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, cream cheese, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Lettucethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, cream cheese, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SaladTomato Salad179 recipesChicken SaladChicken Salad623 recipesSalad DressingSalad Dressing491 recipesCold SlawCold Slaw160 recipes