Quick & Easy Caprese Salad

If you’re like us, you’re always looking for recipes that can help you get supper on the table more quickly.

Whether you’re scrambling to get things done on a busy weeknight or rushing to finish cooking before your guests arrive, it’s always great to have a few recipes that you can throw together in under 10 minutes when you’re running short on time.

We never seem to start cooking as early as we'd like, so this recipe has been a lifesaver on days when we seemed on track to serve dinner at 10 PM! It goes great with this Creamy Parmesan Polenta, which only takes 20 minutes to make.

Required Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to make this quick and flavorful caprese salad:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Mini bocconcini (if you can only find larger balls of bocconcini, just make sure to cut the pieces down to the right size)
• Fresh basil
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt
• Pepper

If you’re a garlic-lover like us, you can also throw in a couple cloves of minced cloves—but if garlic’s not your thing, there’s no need to worry as the salad tastes perfectly fine without it!

How to Make a Quick Caprese Salad (Step-By-Step)

1. Halve Tomatoes & Bocconcini

The first step to make this salad is to cut the cherry tomatoes and balls of bocconcini in half. We always cut our tomatoes lengthwise so they’re less of a choking hazard for young kids.

2. Chop Basil

Throw the halved cherry tomatoes and bocconcini into a salad bowl, then chop up the basil leaves and mix them in.

3. Make Dressing

Pour the olive oil and balsamic vinegar into a small measuring cup or bowl and mix them with a spoon to create an emulsion. If you’re using minced garlic, add it to the oil and vinegar mixture and stir all the ingredients together.

4. Combine & Season

Finally, pour the dressing onto the tomatoes and bocconcini, and stir to coat them. Season with freshly ground salt and black pepper and you’re done!

My mother used to serve something similar at dinner parties when I was growing up and I’ve carried on her tradition. I’ve also carried on her tradition of planning way too many dishes for dinner parties and always being behind schedule in preparing them—apparently that can be passed down from one generation to the next as well!

Our guests always love this salad and so do our kids! We almost never have leftovers.

Note About Fresh Basil

If you’re making this salad in the winter, the only ingredient you might have trouble finding is fresh basil.

We love cooking with fresh herbs, so we use an AeroGarden to grow them indoors year-round! We use the model linked below, but they come in various models and sizes depending on how much indoor gardening you're planning on doing. They go on sale pretty frequently and basil grows really well in them!

We love our AeroGarden so much that we decided to buy a second one! But if you don't have room in your budget, or if you know you wouldn't get much use out if, did you know that it's possible to regrow basil from cuttings? Lots of plants can be regrown this way, and doing so is a great way to save money since it means you only need to buy them once at the grocery store!

Save Money on Bocconcini

You should be able to buy cherry tomatoes and bocconcini year-round.

Bocconcini is sold in small quantities at regular grocery stores and can be pretty expensive, so we typically get ours at Costco to save money. We tend to buy most of our cheese at Costco, in fact—we go through a lot of it and their prices are hard to beat!

Related Summer Recipes

Looking for more recipes to make this summer? Check out these articles:

• 5-Minute Arugula Salad
• Homemade Iced Cappuccino