Our Caprese salad recipe makes a classic Italian tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil starter from Italy’s Capri and Campania region – with two tweaks: we use vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, which are sweeter, and bocconcini, which are smaller balls of buffalo mozzarella. Better for feeding a crowd and a better side if serving with a main – although traditionally insalata Caprese is an appetiser, so don’t tell your Italian friends!
If you love Italian food and the classic Italian Caprese salad made with the big juicy beefsteak tomato (pomodoro) and buffalo mozzarella (mozzarella di bufala), which traditionally come as larger balls of rich creamy fresh mozzarella, you’ll love our Caprese salad recipe. It has just a couple of tweaks: cherry tomatoes (pomodorini) and small balls of fresh mozzarella (bocconcini). It’s one of my favourite recipes with tomatoes.
My tweaks came about from my current circumstances. I’ve been cooking the food my mum has loved over the years to help her recollect fond memories we share, such as a long holiday in Europe after dad died, on which the Capri leg of our Italy trip became one of the most memorable parts of what was ultimately a journey of healing.
We loved so many things about Capri, from the glorious turquoise of the Tyrrhenian sea – which we gazed at from our hotel balcony overlooking Marina Piccola beach, enjoyed most in the early summer’s evening when we’d open a bottle of vino to savour a glass or two before heading up to the old town – to the lively little square there, Piazza Umberto.
We’d sip an aperitivo on the small bustling square as we participated in my mother’s favourite holiday activity of people-watching. Then we’d slip into one of the narrow lanes to stroll to a restaurant I’d booked for dinner – immediately after lunch that day! The first dish we’d order would be an insalata Caprese – which we also would have had for lunch, we loved it that much.
I’ve been making my mother so many Italian pastas (her favourite food!), that I wanted to make her a Caprese salad to have as a starter or on the side. But the larger tomatoes I’ve been buying here have no flavour (unless they’re Truss, which are stupidly expensive), and the couple of tubs of buffalo mozzarella I bought were bad.
After finding some bocconcini that was fresh and creamy, and beautiful vine-ripened cherry tomatoes that smelt so good, as if just-picked, and were incredibly sweet and luscious, I made this salad. Then I realised that it worked far better as a salad to share (especially if you were feeding a crowd), as well as a side to a main. Let me know what you think of this Caprese salad in miniature.
Caprese Salad Recipe for an Italian Tomato, Buffalo Mozzarella and Basil Salad
Terence and I used to spend a lot of time in Italy, as travellers and guidebook writers. Not long after getting off the plane, whichever Italian city we were in, we’d be perusing menus at the nearest neighbourhood restaurant, ordering our first meal of the trip – which is often the best meal, isn’t it? Because the last meal in a place you love is bittersweet.
Soon after we’d be working our way through plates of prosciutto and melon and a Caprese salad, two of the best ingredient pairings in the world. It’s hard to beat the fresh and cured, sweet and salty combination of rock melon (cantaloupe) and ham. Then there’s the sweet-sour taste of tomatoes and subtly salty and creamy mozzarella. The freshness, sweetness and fragrance of Italian basil is the icing on the cake. Genius.
We fell in love with Italy’s island of Capri and the Campania region long before we first travelled to Italy way back in the summer of 1999. Located in Southern Italy, Campania lies immediately south of Lazio (home to Italy’s capital Rome), and is surrounded by some of our favourite Italian regions, Puglia, Basilicata and Calabria. The island of Sardinia lies west and Sicily south.
Little did we know on that first trip, but in the future we’d return to Italy again and again, initially on holidays and later on months-long guidebook research trips, when we’d criss-cross Northern Italy and Southern Italy behind the wheel of a little car. Then on the yearlong round-the-world trip that launched Grantourismo, we’d spend a month split between Venice, Alberobello and Teulada.
Terence and I both studied cinema and filmmaking at uni, and I taught film for years. While the films of Italian neo-realists Visconti, de Sica, Rossellini, and Fellini – and frankly any Italian directors; especially Antonioni, Bertolucci, Tornatore – contributed to my love affair with Italy, it was American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (the films of ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’) that I watched as a kid with my nanna in the 1970s that had me completely besotted with Italy.
Movies like Roman Holiday and Three Coins in the Fountain set in Rome, The Barefoot Contessa, filmed in Portofino and San Remo, and, of course, It Started in Naples with Clark Gable and Sophia Loren, set partly on Capri.
The sizzling scene in which Sophia Loren sang “Tu vuò fà l’americano” (You want to be American), reprised in The Talented Mr Ripley, would stay with me forever. Ironically, it made me want to be Italian! And perhaps partly explains why I fell in love with everything Italian, films, fashion and food, including this Caprese salad.
Funnily enough, our love for all things Italian was one of the things that initially drew Terence and I together. How could I not become smitten with a man who drove an Alfa Romeo, set an alarm to get up to watch the Grand Prix at any ungodly hour, and whose idea of a great meal was a pizza washed down with a bottle of red, finished with a block of Reggiano Parmigiano?
After we moved to the Middle East, Terence was the perfect companion for the somewhat obsessive journeys I planned, especially to Italy, to explore every ancient Roman ruin, visit every major Italian art museum and monument, get lost in the backstreets of every Venice sestiere, climb the tangle of cobbled alleys and laneways in every picturesque hilltop village we came across.
I’m pretty sure Terence was motivated more by the meals that punctuated those Italian adventures! And I was fortunate and very thankful that he was just as obsessive as I was about making culinary pilgrimages to savour iconic Italian specialties in the places of their origin.
On that first trip to Italy, we were on a quest to taste tagliatelle al ragù and lasagne Bolognese in Bologna, pesto alla Genovese in Genoa and Liguria, balsamic vinegar and Prosciutto di Modena in Modena, Prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano Reggiano in Parma, Neapolitan pizza in Napoli, and I could go on… but, of course, buffalo mozzarella in Campania and Caprese salad or insalata Caprese on Capri.
Of course, what’s fascinating is that while nobody denies the salad’s provenance in Campania, home to buffalo mozzarella, some dispute its origin in Capri. The history of Caprese salad or insalata Caprese is much debated by culinary historians.
One of the most interesting origin stories traces the invention of Caprese salad to the chef of Capri’s Hotel Quisisana for a dinner for the Futurist Movement at the hotel in the 1930s. A member of the movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, published The Futurist Cookbook in 1932, in which he criticised many traditional Italian dishes, including pasta. It’s said the chef created a pasta-less dish for the avant-garde artists.
Tips to Making this Caprese Salad Recipe for an Italian Tomato, Buffalo Mozzarella and Basil Salad
This Caprese salad recipe is one of the easiest Italian salads you can make. After making this salad once, you’ll never need to look at a recipe again. A classic Italian Caprese salad or insalata Caprese is made with just 5-6 ingredients: tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella (fresh mozzarella), fresh Italian basil leaves, extra virgin olive oil, and flaky sea salt.
Cracked black pepper is optional and the use of balsamic vinegar, while in a lot of recipes, is not traditional. I adore the product, especially the real stuff from Modena, but it’s too strong for fresh mozzarella and ends up dominating the dish.
My Caprese salad recipe calls for cherry tomatoes (pomodorini) and the smaller balls of fresh mozzarella (bocconcini). Those tweaks came about from my current circumstances, as explained above, because the larger tomatoes we get here have no flavour (unless they’re Truss, which are stupidly expensive), and the couple of tubs of buffalo mozzarella I bought were bad.
After finding some bocconcini that was fresh and creamy, and beautiful vine-ripened cherry tomatoes that smelt just-picked and were incredibly sweet and luscious, I made the salad above, then realised that it worked far better as a salad to share (especially if you were feeding a crowd), as well as a side to a main.
As with a lot of Italian food, this Caprese salad may be simple, but it’s the fresh flavours and high quality of ingredients that really make a good dish great in Italy (or wherever you make Italian food!) and that’s you need to use the best quality ingredients you can afford.
Aside from the tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh Italian basil, the extra virgin olive oil is the most important ingredient, so it’s worth buying the best quality Italian extra virgin olive oil you can. You’ll find that you’ll use less as the flavour is more potent, so it will probably work out more economical in the end.
I haven’t stipulated what kind of salt for our Caprese salad, as times are tough for many right now, so use whatever salt you can afford, but it is hard to beat flaky Maldon sea salt. It’s saltier than table salt, so you’ll only need a pinch.
One final tip that I haven’t included in the recipe, as not everyone likes the softer texture of the tomatoes that results from doing this: but if you sprinkle a little salt on the tomatoes before laying them on the plate, it brings out the flavour. You probably won’t need it if you have really full-flavoured tomatoes, but if you can’t source great tomatoes, try it.
Caprese Salad Recipe for Italian Tomato, Buffalo Mozzarella and Basil Salad
Caprese Salad Recipe for an Italian Tomato, Buffalo Mozzarella and Basil Salad
Our Caprese salad recipe makes the classic Italian tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil salad from Italy’s island of Capri. But we’ve made a couple of little tweaks: we use vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, which are sweeter and packed with loads of flavour, and bocconcini, which are smaller balls of traditional buffalo mozzarella. It makes a better side, especially if you’re plating it with a main.
- 220 g bocconcini or buffalo mozzarella
- 300 g vine-ripened cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup of fresh Italian basil leaves
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil – or more if you like
- ¼ tsp sea salt – or to taste
- ¼ tsp cracked black pepper – or to taste
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Cut the bocconcini into 1cm wide slices, cut the cherry tomatoes into 1cm thick slices, and gently wash and pat dry the basil leaves.
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Lay the slices of bocconcini, cherry tomatoes and basil leaves onto a serving plate, alternating the pieces.
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Drizzle on the extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle on sea salt, grind on the cracked black pepper, and serve immediately.
Calories: 229kcalCarbohydrates: 4gProtein: 11gFat: 19gSaturated Fat: 8gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 9gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 381mgPotassium: 220mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 2324IUVitamin C: 18mgCalcium: 1247mgIron: 1mg
Please do let us know if you make our Caprese salad recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
