Who doesn’t love a caprese salad? All that delicious, fresh tomato, mozzarella, and sweet basil topped with salt and olive oil—it’s a near-perfect appetizer. However, there's one common drawback: You may have noticed it's difficult to make it look as appetizing as it tastes. Sure, you could use smaller tomatoes and mozzarella pieces for a tossed caprese salad. But if you want to serve it flat, putting it together without making a mess can pose a challenge.
Thankfully, author and culinary icon Ina Garten is here to show us how to do it right.
In a new series on Instagram dubbed “Ask Ina,” she's answering your most pressing food-related questions. The first of the series: “How do you make a caprese salad that doesn’t look messy?”
“I love caprese salad in the summer,” Garten says the video. “It’s just so simple, so good.”
The first step requires finding tomatoes and mozzarella that are about the same size in diameter, which will make them look much neater when they’re laid down on a plate. Use a serrated knife to slice the tomatoes and mozzarella to the same width.
“If I have round food, I want to put it on a square plate,” Garten says after cutting her tomatoes and mozzarella and placing them in an alternating formation. “[I think it] looks better. I don’t know. That’s my thing.”
After your plate has two full rows of tomatoes and mozzarella, it's time to season the dish. Garten says she “puts the things that give it flavor on first.” First, she sprinkles on salt and pepper, then red wine vinegar so it gets "really absorbed into the tomatoes.” At the end, she drizzles olive oil over everything.
“The last thing I put on is the basil, and you can do it two different ways,” Garten explains. She suggests either placing entire leaves of basil throughout the dish or cutting it using the julienne technique: Stack multiple leaves with stems removed, roll them up, then slice straight across and scatter the herb across the top. Garten uses this method in her video, but she warns in the comments, “Add the basil just before serving so it doesn't turn brown.” She also always adds a full sprig of basil as garnish to add to the aesthetically pleasing, mess-free end result.