Make a Caprese Salad with Your Fresh Summer Tomatoes

One of the things I love the most about late summer is the abundance of amazing, fresh, organic heirloom tomatoes, whether we grow them in our back yard or get them at the farmer's market. One of our favorite ways to showcase my homegrown heirloom tomatoes and basil is by making a classic Italian-inspired caprese salad, or insalata caprese — it's simple but so delicious.

Make sure you use the freshest, highest quality tomatoes you can find for this as well as really good olive oil and mozzarella. Since this salad is so simple, having amazing ingredients really makes a big difference. In some restaurants you'll find a drizzle of balsamic vinegar but this isn't traditional and if you have awesome tomatoes you won't need it. The acidity from the tomatoes does just fine.

This recipe serves four as a starter. Scale it up to serve more! Sometimes we'll just have this for dinner accompanied by a great loaf of sourdough bread.

Ingredients

• 2–3 large heirloom tomatoes, sliced
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
• A handful of fresh basil leaves
• Kosher or sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil

Directions

Arrange the tomatoes and cheese in overlapping slices on a large plate or platter. You can tear up the basil leaves and scatter them over the tomatoes and cheese or you can insert a leaf in between the slices.

Sprinkle the salad with salt and grind some freshly ground black pepper over everything, then drizzle with olive oil.