Classic caprese salad recipe with photos step by step

What is Caprese

So, Caprese is an Italian dish. In the original, it is something between a salad and an appetizer. Made with just a few basic ingredients—tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, green basil, and an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.

However, like most popular recipes, Caprese has also been modified. New components were added to it, the appearance and even the cooking methods changed. In addition to the salad/appetizer, other dishes emerged that were based on the three main components of Caprese and gave them their name accordingly. Let's look at how, with what you can prepare an appetizer and how to beautifully serve it to the table.

Caprese salad recipe

The recipe for Capri salad is incredibly simple.

First, fresh tomatoes are cut into small slices and placed on a dish. This is the red color of the flag.

This is followed by white color, which is obtained by adding soft brine Mozzarella cheese. It is recommended to remove it from the refrigerator 30 minutes before slicing.

The next color is green. It is prepared by adding basil leaves.

All ingredients are laid out on a dish in layers in a circle. This is how we get the same Italian tricolor.

Then add salt, pepper and, of course, extra virgin olive oil, cold pressed.

The salad turns out to be very nutritious and healthy, and is well absorbed by the body. This is achieved due to the fact that all ingredients are selected harmoniously and complement each other. In particular, carotene is well absorbed by the body thanks to fats (found in Mozzarella cheese).

Basil greens have a beneficial effect on the body, in particular, it calms the nervous system and heals many diseases. And Mozzarella cheese contains high-quality protein.

At the end, the salad is sprinkled with pine seeds or pine nuts.

Caprese salad is served with pesto sauce, which already contains basil. How to cook it?

First, the basil leaves are separated from the stem, washed under running water, dried thoroughly and placed in a cup. Top with a slice of Parmesan and garlic, walnuts, salt to taste, and olive oil. All contents are thoroughly crushed and whipped using a blender.

The resulting sauce is served chilled.

Caprese salad/appetizer options

In our opinion, the difference between salads and appetizers lies in the method of cutting and serving. If the classic recipe is still better classified as an appetizer, then by changing the method of cutting and dressing the food, it can be turned into a salad.

Salad with Caprese ingredients

The easiest way to make a salad from an appetizer is to chop the ingredients into smaller pieces, put them in a salad bowl, season and mix. For those who want more, add other products to the salad. The most popular additives are capers and olives. And then - a complete flight of fantasy.

Caprese salad from English chef Jamie Oliver

Decorating a salad in the form of a wreath

Another simple but original design method that is popular is a wreath. The cheese and tomatoes are laid out in almost the same way as in the classic version, but along the edge of the dish, creating something like a wreath. The effect is emphasized by basil leaves.

If you take mini mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes and, in addition to (or instead of) basil, sprigs of rosemary, you can decorate the wreath in a New Year's style.

Canape Caprese

Canapes can be either on bread or without it at all.

How to cook Caprese on skewers, see step by step here

Instead of white bread, you can use biscuits for canapés. Then it is better to choose them in the size of tomato and mozzarella slices.

Bruschetta in Caprese style

Well, as for bruschetta - toasted ciabatta or baguette, the combination of tomatoes and cheese is also an absolute classic. The cheese can be different, but more often it is the famous Italian mozzarella.

Recipe for bruschetta with tomatoes and mozzarella

Caprese with peaches or strawberries

In addition to the traditional tomato Caprese, her fruit or berry recipes are no less popular. Everything is exactly the same, only you take ripe peaches and strawberries together with tomatoes or instead of them. How to do this is easy to guess from the photo, knowing the basics of preparing the dish.

Pesto as a dressing

Instead of butter and balsamic dressing for an appetizer or salad, you can use another famous Italian dish - pesto sauce. It is prepared from the same green basil with oil, pine nuts and other ingredients. It turns out to be an equally interesting dish.

You can find out the detailed pesto recipe at this link.

Classic pesto: recipe

Preparation:

• First, prepare the Italian pesto sauce. Take 10 g of pine nuts and grind them with a blender with basil. Also add 10 g of balsamic vinegar and 50 g of olive oil. Salt everything.
• Make cross-shaped cuts on the tops of the tomatoes. Dip the vegetables in this form into boiling water for 10 seconds, and then transfer to cold water. This will make it much easier for you to peel the tomatoes. After peeling the tomatoes, cut them into slices.
• Now make the dressing for the future salad. To do this, take a small bowl and mix 55 g of olive oil and 10 g of balsamic vinegar, as well as 10 g of pine nuts.
• Cut the cheese into small pieces.
• Take a serving plate and make a circle of pesto on it. Place a piece of cheese on the resulting circle, then a slice of tomato, and then in the same order. They need to be laid out in a circle.
• Place a few arugula leaves in the center of the circle. Top the arugula with dressing. You can serve it to the table.

Chicken ala Caprese

Of the hot appetizers, the most popular is chicken ala Caprese. We'll see how to prepare it step by step.

What we need:

• chicken breast fillet - 4 pieces;
• cherry tomatoes and cream - 300 g;
• mozzarella - 250 g;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• basil - a handful of leaves;
• olive oil - 2 tbsp;
• balsamic vinegar - for serving;
• salt and ground black pepper.

How to cook chicken using this recipe

Salt and pepper the chicken.

1. Pour oil into the frying pan. Fry the fillet on both sides until crusty.
2. Transfer to a baking dish.
3. In the same frying pan, fry a finely chopped garlic clove for 1 minute. Add chopped basil to it. Let's hold it for another half a minute.
4. Pour this oil over the chicken. Place thin slices of cheese on top.
5. Place it in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
6. We take it out, transfer it to a serving dish, and place whole and chopped tomatoes between the pieces of chicken breast.

Salad “Male whim” recipe with step-by-step photographs

Men's whim salad recipe with step-by-step photographs, today we prepared this salad. The salad is easy to prepare, tasty and nutritious. The peculiarity of this salad is the presence of meat in it, it can be lean pork or veal. Plus, this salad won’t take you much time to prepare. We sometimes watch cooking programs on TV and write down the recipes we like in a notebook. On one of the culinary programs they told and showed how to prepare a male whim salad, which the stronger half of humanity really likes. Most likely this is due to the presence of meat in the salad. But the design of the salad was different, but we decided to decorate this salad just like that, it turned out not only tasty, but also beautiful, appetizing, satisfying.

Ingredients:

• 200 grams pork
• 2-3 eggs
• 100 grams of hard cheese
• 1 onion
• mayonnaise

Ingredients for salad.

First you need to cook the pork in salted water; you can optionally add bay leaves, peppercorns and allspice to the water. Cook the pork until done. Cool the meat and cut into small cubes. You can use boiled tongue instead of pork.

You also need to boil the eggs, peel them and grate them on a coarse grater.

Grate hard cheese on a fine grater.

Peel the onion, cut into small cubes and marinate in a solution of water and vinegar. I marinate the onions like this: half a glass of water, half a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of vinegar, leave for 20-30 minutes. The onion can be pickled or doused with boiling water.

I will decorate the salad using a regular mug, but if you have a special form, you can use it. We have already prepared a salad in a mug - “chicken salad with walnuts”.

Now we will lay out layers, the first layer is hard cheese. All layers of lettuce will need to be pressed down.

Next is a layer of mayonnaise and a layer of eggs. If desired, you can add a little garlic squeezed through a press to the mayonnaise, but I have mayonnaise without garlic.

Then another layer of mayonnaise. From the onions that we pickled, we need to strain the marinade and on top of the eggs we will have a layer of pickled onions.

Next is a layer of mayonnaise and a layer of boiled and chopped pork.

Lubricate the pork with a layer of mayonnaise. Next, you need to take a plate into which we will place the salad from the mug and carefully turn the mug over onto a plate.

You need to hit the mug with your palm and pull it out, this is how the salad turns out.

Now let's move on to decorating the salad. I take mayonnaise in soft packaging, cut the edge and draw vertical stripes, here you can show your imagination.

To decorate the salad I use fresh dill and olives. From the olives I will have flowers and circles on the sides of the salad. Decorate the salad.

I make a flower by cutting an olive in half, I have 2 flowers, it took 5 olives for the flowers. Each flower consists of 5 petals, on all sides of the flowers there are sprigs of dill, and the middle of the flower is mayonnaise. It turned out so beautiful, appetizing and very unusual. Surprise your guests and family.

This salad looks impressive on the table, it turns out tasty, satisfying and not expensive. Enjoy your meal.

Pizza and focaccia with Caprese

In conclusion, about another culinary variation of Caprese - pizza and focaccia.

Many of you are probably familiar or have heard of the famous Margherita pizza? If not, then here is a short description of it for you. Margherita is a thin pizza filled with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. Doesn't remind you of anything?

Focaccia is a flatbread that is made from both yeast dough and unleavened dough. The recipe for yeast focaccia is, in fact, the same recipe for pizza base. Focaccia can be just a flatbread, it can be a product for which additional ingredients are added to the dough - olives, sun-dried tomatoes, etc., or it can simply be served with some kind of addition. And how can you not do without tomatoes and cheese?

As you can see, all three ingredients, and what a variety of recipes, combination of colors, textures and tastes!