I've Bean Travelling

Here’s an easy light salad recipe, just in time for us lazy cooks as summer weather finally arrives. Caprese salad (or insalata Caprese) is a simple Italian dish named for the island of Capri, made up of sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, all seasoned with salt and olive oil. If you want to eat like a real Italian, enjoy it as an antipasto (starter) rather than a side dish.

Recipe

Servings: 2 | Prep/Ready time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 3-4 medium sized Heirloom tomatoes
• 8-12 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into bite size chunks
• 6-8 fresh basil leaves
• Coarse sea salt to taste
• Coarsely ground black pepper to taste
• Extra virgin olive oil

Steps

1) Cut tomatoes into an assortment of slices and chunks. Spread over a large plate in a single, slightly overlapping layer.

2) Tuck chunks of mozzarella amongst the tomato pieces.

3) Drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil.

4) Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

5) Spread basil leaves on top. Ready to serve.

👩🏻‍🍳 Notes from Chuckles

We used Heirloom tomatoes for our version of the salad, which we highly recommend. Typically in season in July and August, they are a popular sale at farmers markets. They are an open-pollinated, non-hybrid cultivar of tomato that lacks the genetic mutation that gives other tomatoes their uniform red colour, instead coming in a range of colours and shapes, and even taste.

As for the dressing, invest in a high quality olive oil and go with the fancy sea salt. We like Maldon sea salt flakes, which I’ve mentioned before in our recipe for salted chocolate chip cookies.

Enjoy!