Make this Caprese Salad Recipe and WOW your guests with a delicious and colorful appetizer. Caprese Salad is perfecto with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, a little extra virgin olive oil, and finished with salt and pepper.

I could eat caprese salad daily, in fact, in the summer months, I do eat it just about every single day. During the summer months, we get delicious tomatoes here in NJ. If you haven’t had a Jersey Fresh Tomato you’re missing out. If you haven’t had a Jersey Fresh Heirloom Tomato you’re definitely missing out. They’re juicy and delicious on their own with a little sea salt and black pepper. I find that the uglier the tomato is, the better it tastes!

What is Caprese Salad?

Caprese Salad is an Italian dish made up of tomato, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, and salt. We like to add a little bit of pepper to give it a little spice, but you can leave the pepper out if you’d like. Some will put on a balsamic reduction, but that is not the traditional way to enjoy this easy Italian appetizer. We use a nice plate or a serving platter. This is easy to make and takes about 10 minutes to do if you make a larger one for a crowd the most it should take is 30 minutes since you’re prepping for more. I always make this appetizer for guests, my family would be shocked if it wasn’t on the table at our get-togethers.

How to make Caprese Salad

ingredients you will need:

juicy tomatoes – we used heirlooms
fresh mozzarella
basil
olive oil
salt + pepper to taste

First, start by selecting your tomatoes. We went with some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes. (I love the way the yellow and red look together with the white and green. Isn’t food beautiful??)

Slice the tomatoes and the mozzarella into the same thickness so they lay together nicely. We suggest using a serrated knife for slicing tomatoes, this prevents from smashing it with a dull blade.

If you’re using multiple colors of tomatoes you can alternate and create a pattern as we did for our Caprese Salad plate with the Tomato sliced separated by colors and mozzarella cheese after two slices of tomato. Otherwise you’ll do one slice of red tomato, one slice of mozzarella, one slice of tomato, etc.

Once the tomatoes and mozzarella are placed as desired you can add some fresh basil, drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with a little sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. We always use a good quality olive oil, especially for this reicpe.

WOW – it not only looks delicious, it tastes delicious too. Food should always be this pretty! When you use fresh produce it always adds color to the plate and your diet.

what goes with caprese salad?

We love serving up this caprese salad recipe with some of our avocado toast. You could even serve it over top of the avocado toast. We always make it for dinner parties too!

how long does caprese salad last?

We like to eat it the day we make it, but it should last for about 2-3 days in the fridge if you use fresh, not overripe tomatoes.

what kind of mozzarella is used for Caprese salad?

We always opt for a freshly made mozzarella. We go to our local market where we can buy it still warm. This is personal preference, you can use your preferred mozzarella.

recipe tips

Keep the ingredients simple, we do not use balsamic vinegar or a balsamic glaze as we feel it really overpowers the dish. We like to taste the tomato, taste the saltiness of the cheese, and of course the earthiness from the basil. Just like my grandfather from Italty, although he added edible flowers too. 🙂
Don’t want the large slices and want an even easier caprese? Make it with mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes. You can’t go wrong, we love caprese salad both ways!