The perfect recipe to use up the last of your garden tomatoes, this tomato caprese salad couldn’t be easier to make. Literally FIVE ingredients and FIVE minutes to make. Apparently we are all about the no bake, super simple and quick recipes this week! LOL

This year I wasn’t feeling quite up to the time commitment of canning homemade salsa, tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce with my plethora of garden tomatoes like I did last year. Perhaps I’ll break out my giant pressure canner again next year, but this year many of the tomatoes have been used to make this roasted tomato soup. I’ve also been giving them away by the bagful to pretty much anyone that I see…coworkers, family, my local foodbank, and a local café in my small town. Maybe I should plan better and not plant as many tomatoes net year…but I always see SO MANY beautiful varieties I want to plant. Not to mention, when you buy a tiny little 6-pack of tomato plants they look so small and harmless…I forget how much they produce!

Ingredients

I also was fortunate to use fresh basil from our garden. This was the first year I grew basil, and it did pretty well! I used a block of mozzarella cheese, which to be honest isn’t the most traditional way to make this recipe. Usually fresh mozzarella cheese is used…but I’m actually not the biggest fan of fresh mozzarella (it’s rather bland/too soft in my opinion), plus I was trying to use what I had on hand. But feel free to use fresh if that’s what you’d prefer!

I can vouch that leftovers of this side dish are delicious on grilled chicken, mixed with chickpeas and salad greens for lunch…so many options!

Anyways, this is a great side dish to make for Labor Day! I seriously can’t believe that next week (wait…just realized actually THIS SATURDAY!!) is already September! What are your plans for the holiday weekend? I am super excited that I have lots of family from both my side and Chris’s side of the family visiting from out of town. Cousins on my side, and my brother and sister-in-law on Chris’s side. I’m close with all of them, and so excited to spend this weekend with family! Hope you all have a wonderful long holiday weekend.?