This easy caprese salad with balsamic vinegar looks absolutely gorgeous and tastes like summer. It’s ready in just 20 minutes!
Depending on the serving size, it can be a tasty appetizer, a side dish, or even a filling main course. If necessary, you can make it a few hours ahead of time.
Caprese salad is quick, fresh, and filling. It’s one of those super-simple dishes that are surprisingly delicious, especially if you use the freshest in-season ingredients.
This salad has such a wonderful flavor combination! I’ve come to strongly associate this fresh-tasting dish with summer. I make it at least once a week, and my entire family loves it.
Ingredients
Here’s an overview of what you’ll need:
- Fresh tomatoes: They need to be truly red, ripe, yet firm. Certainly not pale and mealy.
- Fresh mozzarella: The fresher you can find, the better it will taste.
- Basil leaves: Pick beautiful green ones, free of blemishes and brown spots.
- Kosher salt and black pepper: I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Olive oil: Extra-virgin olive oil is so flavorful – I highly recommend using it in this salad.
- Balsamic vinegar: In many other recipes, red wine vinegar would be OK, but here, you really do need to use thick, rich, almost sweet balsamic vinegar.
- Mustard: I use Dijon mustard. It’s thicker, creamier, and less vinegary than yellow mustard. It helps the dressing emulsify.
Variations
- Instead of red tomatoes, you can use heirloom tomatoes and pick different colors of them.
- You can make caprese skewers by threading cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and basil leaves on wooden skewers and then drizzling them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- Turn it into a filling main-course salad by adding avocado slices and sliced hard-boiled eggs.
- Replace the mozzarella with halloumi cheese.
- Make a cherry tomato caprese using cherry tomatoes (1 pint), mozzarella balls (1 cup), and small basil leaves, as shown in the photo below.
Instructions
Scroll down to the recipe card for detailed instructions. Here are the basic steps for making this salad:
Whisk the dressing ingredients and set aside. Using a sharp knife, thinly slice the tomatoes and mozzarella.
Arrange the tomato and mozzarella slices on a platter, alternating and overlapping each other. Arrange the basil leaves on top.
Sprinkle the salad with salt and pepper. Drizzle it with the dressing, and serve.
Expert Tips
As is always the case when it comes to simple recipes, the individual ingredients must be of high quality to make this simple salad as good as it can be. So when you make this salad, I recommend that you follow these suggestions:
- Make sure you use good olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.
- Choose Kosher salt or sea salt rather than table salt.
- Pick fresh whole-milk mozzarella, as fresh as you can get.
- Most importantly, use good tomatoes. Big, red, ripe but firm, not mealy, and definitely not refrigerated. If your tomatoes did spend some time in the fridge, take them out and bring them to room temperature.
Serving Suggestions
When I serve this salad as an appetizer for sharing, I like to add prosciutto, as shown in the photo below:
Storing Leftovers
I don’t recommend keeping leftovers for longer than a day or so. So, it’s OK to prepare this salad ahead of time, but I would only make it a couple of hours before I plan on serving it. It can turn soggy overnight in the fridge.
If you do make this salad in advance, it’s best to add the basil and dressing at the very last minute, right before serving the salad.
