A very simple but incredibly delicious salad. Few people are unfamiliar with Italian Caprese salad — it's a classic antipasto appetizer, served before the main course. The salad is made with soft mozzarella, flavorful tomatoes, basil leaves, olive oil, salt, and pepper. A long time ago, when I tried it for the first time, the flavor didn't really impress me. It came out fairly bland, despite the basil, salt, pepper, and oil. But later, when I added pesto sauce to it, I truly fell in love with it — it became genuinely delicious. So personally, for me, Caprese salad just doesn't exist without pesto sauce; this sauce beautifully highlights the flavors and makes the dish truly interesting and refined! The ingredient list below yields approximately 4–6 servings.
Ingredients:
- 250 g mozzarella (soft)
- 3-4 tomatoes
- Pesto Sauce:
- 60 g olive oil (extra virgin)
- 30 g fresh basil (net weight)
- 30 g parmesan (or similar cheese)
- 20 g walnuts (or pine nuts)
- 2 cloves garlic
- salt
How to cook Caprese salad with pesto sauce
I've already shown the pesto sauce in Pasta with Pesto Sauce. The classic recipe calls for pine nuts, but I've been making it with walnuts for a long time now. Pine nuts are hard to find around here, and when you do find them, the price is outrageous — plus they're often already rancid. Pine nuts have a high oil content, so they go rancid very quickly. But if you have good, fresh pine nuts, by all means use them for the pesto. Let's make the sauce. Strip the basil leaves from the stems, wash them, dry them thoroughly, and place them in a bowl. Add the parmesan cut into pieces and the garlic, then add the nuts and salt, and pour in the oil.
Store the finished sauce in a sealed jar in the refrigerator. It's best served cold — that's when it tastes best.
Comments