Stone Fruit Caprese

Stone Fruit Caprese
Bobbi Lin for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Eugene Jho. Prop Stylist: Christina Lane.
Total Time
20 minutes
Rating
4(1,152)
Notes
Read community notes

A standout caprese starts with great fruit. You need ripe tomatoes to weep juices, which then mingle with grassy olive oil and milky cheese to make your dressing. Basil adds freshness, black pepper and flakes of sea salt add crunch, and that’s it, a perfect combination. But if the stone fruit options are looking better than the tomatoes at the market, you can use them instead. They’re similar in flavor to tomatoes, but need cajoling to relinquish their juices. By letting sliced fruit macerate with salt, sugar and lemon juice, their fruitiness becomes more electric and their juices pool on the plate. Start with fruit you can smell and pair it with equally quality ingredients. Caprese is more about shopping than cooking.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 servings
  • 2pounds ripe but firm stone fruit (such as nectarines, peaches, plums, cherries or a mix)
  • 1tablespoon lemon juice, plus more as needed
  • 2teaspoons granulated sugar, plus more as needed
  • Flaky sea salt
  • 8ounces fresh mozzarella, at room temperature
  • About 20 basil or mint leaves, or a combination, torn if large
  • 2tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
  • Freshly ground black pepper
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

207 calories; 13 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 6 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 15 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 1 gram sugars; 9 grams protein; 476 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Pit the stone fruit and cut into irregular pieces. Transfer to a serving platter, then sprinkle with the lemon juice, sugar and ½ teaspoon flaky sea salt. Toss with your hands, then let sit until juices pool on the platter, 5 to 10 minutes. Taste and adjust sugar, salt and lemon juice until the fruit tastes perky and bright — like the greatest stone fruit you’ve eaten.

  2. Step 2

    Tear the mozzarella into bite-size pieces and nestle it among the fruit. Tuck in the herb leaves. Drizzle the platter with olive oil. If the cheese looks dry, add a little more oil. Sprinkle with a few grinds of black pepper and a pinch of flaky salt, and serve.

Ratings

4 out of 5
1,152 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

Tremendous. This was great with peaches, sour cherries (bumped the sugar up a smidge), basil, and mint. An old serious eats trick can help breath life into standard grocery store fresh mozzarella: soak it for an hour in warm (~110F) salted (1tsp/cup) whole milk.

Roz, those are cherries in the photo, red ones and a few that look like early Rainier's. (Your idea of apricots, prosciutto and pistachios sounds fabulous btw.) I just made this with peaches, cherries, "very cherry" plums, basil and burrata rather than mozzarella. Killer. Thanks Ali for a great recipe template for summer fruit salads.

This dish has a lemon-juice base so you wouldn't want to add another acid (even balsamic), which would muddle the flavor. Likewise choose either basil or mint (which are in the same family) but not both. In the Italian kitchen, less is always more. Resist the urge to kitchen-sink Italian recipes and instead focus on using a few ingredients, perfectly in season.

I used fresh ricotta cheese instead of the mozzarella -- incredible!

Apricots in season and this was an easy and beautiful dish. I added cherry tomatoes as the photo shows but are not in the recipe. Used fresh basil. Since there is remaining liquid from the marinated apricots and olive oil, it will make a great salad dressing! Might add prosicutto and pistachios next time.

Hi (from Italy)... I was almost out of mozzarella so used fresh RICOTTA !...it can definitely be substituted. Good with basil and/or mint Ottimo!

Made this tonight with burrata instead of mozzarella - so delicious! Served with grilled bread to sop up the delicious juices. Highly recommend!

Good lord, that's delicious. Can't wait to make this to bring to parties, get lots of compliments, and demurely pretend I don't know how devastatingly good it is.

I added a drizzle of white balsamic vinegar with Meyer lemon olive oil over the peaches & cherries

Excellent exactly as written. Did a half-recipe for the two of us. A reviewer suggests adding pistachios and/or prosciutto, which sound like great ideas. I think pignoli instead of pistachios would be good, and I also think olives would work. And at a meal at Homewood restaurant in Dallas a few years ago they served a stone fruit salad that included house-grown cherry tomatoes, and it was really good.

This was a fabulous salad ! Your entire family and friends will LOVE this! Be a rockstar and make this !

I’m a college student, so I don’t have a ton of kitchen stuff. But oh my lord, this is the easiest and tastiest thing I have eaten since moving to college. My whole hall loves it.

Since I had no mozzarella, I used ricotta. It was great!

Divine. Made with combo basil and mint. Used Buffalo Mozzarella

This is spectacular! I use Rainier cherries and let the fruit sit much longer than 10 minutes so that there's enough juice and olive oil to drink from a glass later. Absolutely delicious.

This was a spectacular concept. I substituted 'Bocconcini' for the mozzarella to up the taste considerably. The only NOTE I have is on time (. . . though I'm not s professional in any way, shape or form). I needed at least a 1/2 hour to cut the fruit, especially the 'Bing Cherries'.

Read reviews. Use ricotta.

This is delicious. Just a warning...I made this ahead, mixed all together in a bowl. The mozzarella got a little tough, maybe from the lemon juice? The mint gave such a nice flavor. Served to company with BBQ ribs, everyone loved it. I'm making it again today, but without cheese, as I'm quasi-dieting.

This was delicious with just a mix of yellow and white local Hudson Valley peaches, deck-grown basil, and Adams Fairacre mozzarella. Soaked up the remaining juices with a slice of Speedy No-Knead Bread. I imagine it with ricotta, too, even more luscious.

This was delicious and everyone loved it. Made with peaches and cherries and used mint not basil. Outstanding.

Basil only. Buffalo mozzarella for my A1 casein sensitive diner. Used Nordur Arctic Sea salt crystals which are just so flaky and crisp. Solely peaches. Made this on a day in the 90s and I was the rock star of the day

I regularly make a version of this with the stone fruit from our trees. I toss lettuce and sliced stone fruit with a little oil and dried oregano. Then I add partly-crumbled/partly-chunky queso fresco and gently mix. The cheese is salty and soft, and the fruit is generally a mix of tart and sweet, and also has varying degrees of softness. The lettuce is crispy.

delicious. I used Burrata and carefully sliced it in 8ths then plopped them on top. The juice that collected on the bottom of my plate afterwards tasted like peach ice cream.

I made this for two people, cutting the olive oil to 2 tsp, using nectarines and a mango that needed to be eaten. Wonderful blend of flavors.

Used nectarines, peaches, apricots, red grapes, blueberries and basil.

Outstanding! I used a combination of peaches, nectarines, plums and cherries. The flaky salt added really amped-up the flavor of already flavorful fruit. I served the fruit on a bed of baby lettuces from my neighbors garden that was dressed with a simple vinaigrette. I can’t wait to make this again.

Yum!!!!

We eat caprese salad on repeat in the summer, so this is a nice alternative for something different, and you can change it up in so many ways. I was in a rush and took the lazy route of just throwing some halved sugar plums on a plate, dousing with lemon juice and honey, adding mozz and herbs, and drizzling with lots of olive oil and a shower of flaky salt. It was a hit and used up a ton of tiny plums that might have gone bad!

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