In the Netherlands, we love the Italian ‘Caprese’ salad! ‘Caprese’ salad is a salad made of mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil and basil. We make sandwiches, toasties & snacks with this ingredient combination. Since there was no such recipe yet on this website, it was time to create one!
Personally I love cooked wheat, or other grains! You can personalize the flavor, prepare it ahead and it is quite healthy! Moreover, you can easily take this salad to-go. Do you still have some vegetables leftover? Grill those and add them to the salad to make this dish even more nutritious.
Wheat Caprese & Green Pesto
Equipment
- Cooking Pot
- Non-Stick Frying Pan
- Mortar
Ingredients
- 200 gram Wheat Grains
- 10 Cherry Tomatoes
- Some Mini Mozzarella
- Some Arugula
Pesto Ingredients
- 50 gram Basil
- 2 tbsp Pine nuts or Macadamia Nuts
- Some Aged Sheep Cheese or Old Amsterdam Goat Cheese (aged)
- ½ clove Garlic
- ½ Lemon
- 7 tbsp Olive Oil
Instructions
Cooking the Wheat Grains
- Rinse the wheat grains and add them to the cooking pot. Add enough water, which is about 5 cm above the wheat grains. Depending on European soft wheat or American hard wheat, the cooking time can vary between 75 and 120 minutes. Drain the wheat grains, when cooked, and let them cool to room temperature.
Making the Pesto
- Toast the pine nuts until golden brown in a dry frying fan.
- In the meanwhile, you can add the garlic and a pinch of salt to the mortar. Bash this until the clove of garlic turned into a garlic paste.
- Then you can add the basil leaves, pine nuts and some grated cheese. Bash again until all the ingredients are smashed completely.
- Add the olive oil, juice and zest of 1/2 lemon to make the pesto more creamy. Season the pesto with additional salt & pepper!
Mixing & Serving
- Mix the wheat grains with the pesto. You can add as much or little as you like!
- Serve the wheat grains with mozzarella, tomatoes and some arugula.