The same combination that makes pizza so irresistible — mozzarella and tomatoes — also makes a mean salad.
And just like a classically delicious pizza, you don’t need much beyond those two star ingredients to assemble a stunning salad, known in Italy as a caprese salad.
In this case,
I simply stacked slabs of tomato and fresh mozzarella, then drizzled them with a lemon vinaigrette and sprinkled them with fresh basil and lemon zest.
To add a punch of tang to the salad, I added capers to the vinaigrette, as well as a sprinkle of them over the salad just before serving. Capers are the pickled unopened flower buds of a bush that grows in the Mediterranean. The flavor is pleasantly briny and herby.
Of course, like pizza, feel free pile on whatever else seems tasty.
Caprese salad with caper vinaigrette
2 8-ounce balls fresh mozzarella
2 large slicing tomatoes
Salt and ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon capers, divided
Handful fresh basil leaves
Use a serrated knife to slice each ball of mozzarella into 4 slices. Repeat with the tomatoes, cutting each into 4 slices.
Stack 2 slices of tomato and 2 slices of mozzarella, alternating as you stack, on each of 4 serving plates. As you stack, season each tomato slice with a pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside.
In a blender, combine the olive oil, lemon juice and half of the capers. Puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a bit of the dressing over each mozzarella-tomato stack. Scatter several basil leaves, a few of the remaining capers and a bit of the lemon zest over each stack.
Makes 4 servings. Per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 460 calories; 370 calories from fat (79 percent of total calories); 41 g fat (18 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 90 mg cholesterol; 5 g carbohydrate; 19 g protein; 1 g fiber; 370 mg sodium.
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