The Pioneer Woman’s Spin on Caprese Salad Includes Fried Green Tomatoes & Yes, It’s Definitely Still a Salad

Caprese salad is one of the simplest, most delicious side dishes you can put on your dinner table. And although the original combination of juicy red tomato, mozzarella, balsamic, oil, and basil can’t be beat, the Pioneer Woman (a.k.a. Ree Drummond) just combined the classic caprese with another favorite country side dish that adds a bit of crunch to everyone’s favorite way to serve tomato and cheese.

Drummond replaced those red tomatoes with warm and toasty fried green tomatoes, battered in flour, egg, and panko, then sprinkled each one with a generous helping of salt. Then the rest of the salad is assembled similarly to a regular caprese — tomato and mozzarella overlap each other in a circle on the perimeter of the serving dish.

“You can let the tomatoes cool if you want to, but I like leaving them warm because it makes the mozzarella soften a little bit,” she said in the below video.

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The tomato and mozzarella slices are topped with big leaves of basil and a drizzle of balsamic glaze. Then, you’re ready to eat!

“What a beautiful snack…salad…appetizer?” Drummond said. It can really be anything you want it to be!

This entire dish comes together in just about 30 minutes, making it an ideal go-to for pot-luck parties and last-minute dinner guests. The tomatoes only take about two minutes to cook per batch, which means the most time-consuming part of the entire recipe may be the battering process (but that’s also the most fun!).