Caprese Pasta Salad, Dressed Hot Instead of Cold

Caprese pasta salad has a reputation, and pasta salad generally deserves it. It turns up at cookouts in a big plastic bowl, everyone takes some, and nobody thinks about it again.

There is one step that separates the version people go back for from the version that sits there untouched. It is not an ingredient, it does not cost anything, and it takes no extra time. Dress the pasta while it is hot.

Don't Rinse the Pasta

The standard instruction is to drain the pasta and run it under cold water until it is completely cool, then dress it. The reasoning is that it stops the cooking and keeps the pieces from sticking, and both of those are true.

What it also does is shut the door. Hot pasta is porous. The starch on the surface is soft and slightly loose, and it pulls the dressing in rather than letting it run off. Cool it down first and the starch tightens up, so the dressing slides around the bowl and collects at the bottom while the pasta itself stays fairly plain. The rinse also washes away the surface starch that would have helped the dressing cling in the first place.

So drain it, tip it straight into a wide bowl, and pour most of the dressing over while it is steaming. Ten minutes later it has taken most of it in and cooled enough to add everything else.

Why Pasta Salad Usually Tastes of Nothing

Cold flattens flavor. That is true of most food and especially true of olive oil, which goes dull and slightly thick when chilled and loses the peppery finish that makes it worth using. A caprese pasta salad straight out of the fridge is fighting itself, so take it out fifteen or twenty minutes before people eat and give it a stir.

The dressing is where the oil earns its place. There is no vinaigrette hiding behind mustard or sugar here, just oil, lemon, one clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Whatever the oil tastes like is what the salad tastes like, which is a good argument for using one you would happily eat off a spoon.

Keep some dressing back in the jar. The pasta keeps drinking it in while the salad sits, and one that was perfect when you made it can be dry an hour later. The reserved splash at the end fixes that in seconds.

The Balsamic Goes On Last, Not In

Balsamic usually goes into the dressing, sometimes in quantity. We would keep it out. It is sweet and dark and assertive, and mixed in it takes over and turns the whole bowl a murky brown. Lemon does the acid job without competing with the oil.

Then the balsamic goes over the top at the end as a glaze, in thin dark lines across the bowl, where it stays its own distinct thing. You taste it as a sweet sharp note against the oil rather than blended into it.

Worth knowing that a classic insalata caprese is tomato, mozzarella and basil dressed with olive oil and salt, and no balsamic at all. The drizzle is a habit that grew up outside Italy. We use it anyway, because it tastes good and a pasta salad is already a long way from the original in the old country.

The Small Things That Matter

Buy mozzarella pearls or bocconcini rather than shredded. Shredded mozzarella is coated in starch to stop it clumping and it turns rubbery cold. The small fresh balls stay soft and give you that cool milky bite against a sweet tomato, which is the whole reason anyone eats caprese anything.

Cook the pasta a minute or two under the package time, since it carries on softening in the bowl. Salt the water a little less than you normally would, because cool food carries salt more strongly than hot food. And pat the tomatoes dry after you halve them, or they thin the dressing into a puddle.

Add the basil at the very end. Torn basil sitting in acid goes dark and limp within the hour, and it is the ingredient doing the most for the smell of the dish.

Caprese Pasta Salad

Serves 6 to 8  ·  25 minutes

Ingredients

• 12 oz short pasta, such as fusilli, farfalle or cavatappi

• 8 oz fresh mozzarella pearls, drained

• 3 cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

• ½ cup fresh basil leaves, torn or sliced into ribbons

• ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus a little more to finish

• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

• 1 garlic clove, pressed or very finely minced

• ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more for the pasta water

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

• Balsamic glaze, to finish

Instructions

1. Put the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper in a jar with a lid and shake hard for ten seconds, until it thickens slightly and turns cloudy.

2. Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente, a minute or two under the package time. Salt the water a little less than you usually would.

3. Drain the pasta and do not rinse it. Tip it straight into a wide bowl, pour over about three quarters of the dressing, and toss. Leave it for ten minutes.

4. Pat the halved tomatoes dry. Once the pasta is warm rather than hot, add the tomatoes and mozzarella and fold them through gently.

5. Just before serving, add the basil and the dressing you held back. Drizzle with balsamic glaze and a little more olive oil.

Make It Yours

• Torn prosciutto or sliced salami folded in at the end turns it into a meal.

• Cherry tomatoes roasted until they burst, cooled slightly and folded through.

• A handful of arugula added right before serving.

• Pitted Kalamata olives or pepperoncini if you want it saltier and sharper.

Making It Ahead

Dress the pasta and keep it covered in the fridge for up to two days, holding the tomatoes, mozzarella and basil back separately. Acid and cold turn tomatoes soft and basil dark. Combine an hour or so before serving, let it sit out for fifteen minutes, then finish with the reserved dressing and the balsamic.

Serving It

Serve it at room temperature in a wide bowl, never straight from the fridge. It is a potluck dish that survives the journey, and it sits happily next to grilled chicken, sausages or a plate of prosciutto. Put a small bottle of oil on the table beside it so people can add more, because somebody always wants to.

With a dressing this short there is nowhere for a dull oil to hide, which is the point. Di Marco Olio is grown and pressed on one estate in Cefalà Diana, Sicily, picked by hand in the fall and cold pressed within forty-eight hours.