For me, making a Caprese Salad is the first sign of summer. When the days get too hot to cook, or you need a quick appetizer for guests and don't want to turn on the oven. This is a great "go-to" dish when the weather is warm and you want something cool. It also puts me right back in Italy when we needed to grab a quick lunch in between site seeing. Dining al fresco, with a glass of Pinot Grigio, a plate of Caprese, and listening to all the Italians speak so fast sounding like music in the background...heaven!
Caprese salad is one of the easiest Italian dishes to make, because it only uses a few ingredients! The key to any good dish, especially this one, is FRESH quality ingredients. Use whatever juicy ripe tomatoes are in season, fresh mozzarella cheese, and basil leaves. For the mozzarella buy the kind sold in water in the refrigerated section. This will give that creamy texture you're looking for. You want to smell the tomatoes and basil to make sure they are high quality! If you can smell their sweetness you know they are ready!
To assemble, make sure to cut the tomatoes and mozzarella into same size pieces. You can slice into fillets, cut into salad style wedges, or even chop to cubes...all good! I like to either tear the basil like in this picture, or chiffonade them. Chiffonade is a culinary term for shred, and sounds fancy and hard to do, but it's not! I put the leaves on top of each other, then roll them up to look like a long log. Then just take your knife and slice! Take those shredded pieces and sprinkle all over the tomatoes and mozzarella. Last, to make this dish sing, drizzle really good Extra Virgin Olive Oil all over the top of it and sprinkle a good amount of kosher salt. Then it's ready to eat! Enjoy!
Serves 4 for an appetizer
1 ripe tomato
1 large ball of fresh mozzarella
4 large basil leaves
Olive Oil for drizzling
kosher salt to taste
You inspired me! I made some yesterday! Fresh Ohio tomatoes makes a world of difference.
Looks so yummy and fresh! Hello Summer!