Side dishes · Green salads & slaws
Caprese salad
Italy's flag on a plate and July's best argument: ripe tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil with olive oil and salt. Ten minutes, no cooking, no improving it.
- Time
- 10 min (10 prep + 0 cook)
- Servings
- 4
- Per serving
- 265 kcal
- Protein
- 12 g
Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.
Ingredients
- 3 large ripe tomato, thick slices450 g
- 1 ball fresh mozzarella, thick slices200 g
- a big handful of leaves fresh basil15 g
- 3 tbsp olive oil40 g
- 1/2 tsp, flaky salt3 g
- a few grinds black pepper1 g
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional)15 g
Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.
Steps
- Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella the same thickness and shingle them with basil leaves tucked between.
- Salt the tomatoes directly — ten minutes before serving if you can; salt is what makes a good tomato taste like a great one.
- Olive oil over everything, pepper, and balsamic only if the tomatoes need help.
- Room temperature, always. The fridge mutes everything this salad is.
Why this score
moderately fillingNo single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.
Three routes to fullness — one is enough
What pulls it down
Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1058 kcal goes into the pot, 724 g of ingredients comes out as ~720 g of food → 147 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.
Per
- Calories
- 147
- Protein
- (18%)
- 7 g
- Fat
- (72%)
- 12 g
- Carbohydrates
- (10%)
- 4 g
- of which sugar
- 2 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 300 mg
Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.
Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.
More side dishes
Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.