Caprese Salad with Hot Honey Drizzle

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup runny honey
• 1/2-1 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar (or vinegar of choice, or lemon juice)
• pinch of salt
• 3 large tomatoes (or a mix of sizes and varieties)
• 3 balls fresh mozzarella (roughly 4-5oz (120g-140g) per ball)
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted (or substitute with your preferred nuts)
• 1/2 cup croutons
• salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. 1

   --- Making the hot honey dressing ---

2. 2

   Add the honey and chilli flakes to a small saucepan. Heat over very low heat for about 4 minutes to allow the chilli flakes to infuse into the honey. Be sure not to let it come to a boil, as boiling could cause the honey to become too thick.

3. 3

   Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the honey to cool down slightly. This will help the flavours and heat settle before you use it in your salad.Stir in the vinegar and pinch of salt.

4. 4

   Decant the drizzle into a jar. For a smoother dressing, you can strain it through a sieve to remove the chilli flakes, leaving just the infused honey. We prefer to keep ours in.

5. 5

   --- Making the salad ---

6. 6

   Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella into thick-ish rounds. Don’t discard the smaller end bits - just pair up smaller tomato slices with smaller mozzarella slices. Rustic, not perfect.

7. 7

   Drizzle a little olive oil onto your salad platter - this just helps spread the oil more evenly under the salad.

8. 8

   Start with a slice of tomato, a slice of mozzarella and a few basil leaves. Then repeat - slightly overlapping the next tomato slice over the mozzarella, followed by another slice of mozzarella and more basil. Keep layering like this until you've used up all your slices.

9. 9

   Sprinkle over the toasted pine nuts and croutons. You can also add extras like cherry tomatoes (leave some on the vine if you like) and mozzarella pearls.

10. 10

    Drizzle over the rest of the olive oil and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

11. 11

    You can drizzle the hot honey dressing over the salad now, or serve it on the side so guests can add their own. We like to drizzle a little over the top and leave the rest in a jar for everyone to help themselves.