Caprese salad

Caprese Salad is a simple Italian salad, made of sliced fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and sweet basil, seasoned with salt and olive oil. It is usually arranged on a plate in restaurant-style or in a salad bowl in home-style. The salad is named after the island of Capri, where it is believed to have originated.

Ingredients

The main ingredients of Caprese Salad are:

• Mozzarella: A traditionally southern Italian cheese made from Italian buffalo's milk by the pasta filata method.
• Tomatoes: A significant source of umami flavor, tomatoes are a fruit that is considered a vegetable by nutritionists.
• Basil: A culinary herb prominently featured in Italian cuisine, and also plays a major role in the Northeast Asian cuisine of Taiwan and the Southeast Asian cuisines of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
• Salt: A mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in its natural form as a crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite.
• Olive oil: A liquid fat obtained from olives, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil.

Preparation

The preparation of Caprese Salad is straightforward and requires no cooking. The mozzarella and tomatoes are sliced and arranged on a plate with the basil leaves. The salad is then seasoned with salt and drizzled with olive oil.

Variations

There are several variations of Caprese Salad that include additional or alternative ingredients. Some of these variations include:

• Caprese skewers: This variation uses cherry tomatoes and small mozzarella balls (bocconcini), and the ingredients are threaded onto skewers for easy serving.
• Caprese pasta salad: This variation adds cooked pasta to the traditional Caprese ingredients, often served as a main dish.
• Caprese pizza: This variation uses the Caprese ingredients as toppings for a pizza.

Nutritional Value

Caprese Salad is a good source of protein from the mozzarella cheese. It also provides vitamins A and C from the tomatoes, as well as healthy fats from the olive oil.

See Also

• Italian cuisine
• Mediterranean diet
• List of salads

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