Caprese Pasta Salad
This Caprese pasta salad recipe is easy, delicious and perfect for summertime! Just cook cherry tomatoes with olive oil to make the perfect pasta sauce.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 30, 2024
Craving fresh, easy dinnertime recipes this summer? Me, too. This Caprese pasta salad recipe is just the ticket! This recipe has been one of my favorites for the past five years, and I’m re-sharing it today in case you have missed it.
This pasta recipe really straddles the line between “pasta dish” and “pasta salad,” since it’s great whether you serve it warm or cold. It’s made simply with whole wheat pasta, lots of cherry tomatoes, mozzarella pearls, fresh basil and olive oil.
Briefly cooking the tomatoes on the stove makes their bright flavor sing. It also releases some juices that combine with the olive oil to turn into a light pasta sauce. Dinner is ready in twenty-five minutes.
This recipe started to take shape while my little brother was in town, way back in the summer of 2013. We stayed in for dinner to save money. He ate leftover cheese pizza, while I haphazardly threw some cherry tomatoes in a pan and reheated spaghetti. He eyed my pasta while I wished for more pizza.
I’ve refined the recipe several times since then and it’s about as simple as can be. Boil water for pasta, cook cherry tomatoes whole in the meantime, and toss in some chopped basil and mozzarella balls at the end.
This recipe was roughly inspired by the classic Caprese salad. Caprese salads might be ubiquitous this time of year, but for good reason. You really can’t go wrong with any combination of mozzarella, basil and ripe, peak-season tomatoes. Pasta just plays a supporting role in this recipe.
The idea for cooking the cherry tomatoes comes from Tom Colicchio’s recipe for squid with burst cherry tomatoes in Food & Wine’s August issue. If you haven’t tried burst cherry tomatoes yet, you’re really in for a treat!
Watch How to Make Caprese Pasta Salad
Caprese Pasta Salad Notes & Tips
This dish might seem a little watery after you stir the pasta into the tomatoes, but don’t worry. Give it a 20-minute rest and you’ll find that the pasta absorbs some of the moisture and the sauce thickens up.
Mozzarella “pearls” seem to be pretty easy to find these days (they are little mozzarella balls about the diameter of a dime). If you can’t find them, you can buy a standard mozzarella ball and tear it into smaller pieces, or cut any mid-sized mozzarella ball (Ciliegine) into smaller pieces.
The balsamic vinegar is a key component here. If your finished dish doesn’t quite taste spectacular, add a little more of it.
Use white balsamic vinegar if you can (it’s generally available next to the regular balsamic in the vinegar aisle), but regular balsamic will work, too.
If you want to stretch this recipe a bit to serve a larger crowd, use 8 ounces pasta and 3 pints of cherry tomatoes. Then add some extra basil and vinegar, to taste.
You can get by using less olive oil, if you’re worried about using 1/3 cup here. But I think it’s totally irresistible as written.
Caprese Pasta Salad
This Caprese pasta salad recipe is easy, delicious and perfect for summertime! Just cook cherry tomatoes with olive oil to make the perfect pasta sauce. Recipe yields 4 modest servings.
Ingredients
- 6 ounces (2 cups) whole grain fusilli or rotini pasta
- ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 8 ounces mozzarella “pearls”, or one mozzarella ball, torn into bite-sized pieces
- Several sprigs of fresh basil (enough for 2+ tablespoons chopped)
- 2 to 3 teaspoons white balsamic vinegar or regular balsamic vinegar, to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta until al dente, according to package instructions. Drain the pasta and set it aside.
- While the pasta is cooking, combine the olive oil, tomatoes and salt in a large, non-reactive skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Cover the skillet (use a baking sheet if you don’t have a better lid). Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the tomatoes have started to burst out of their skins and the olive oil has a light red hue (about 6 to 12 minutes).
- Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the cooked pasta. Let the mixture cool for a few minutes while you chop the basil. We don’t want the cheese to melt on contact, so wait to proceed to the next step until your pasta is lightly warm (not hot).
- Stir the mozzarella balls and basil into the pasta. Add the vinegar, then taste and add additional vinegar and/or salt, if it doesn’t quite taste spectacular yet. For best flavor, let the mixture rest for about 20 minutes, so the pasta can absorb some of the sauce. Or, refrigerate it for future use.
- This salad will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Leftovers are great chilled or at room temperature. You can also reheat the pasta if you don’t mind the mozzarella melting (yum).
Notes
Make it gluten free: Use your favorite gluten-free noodles.
Make it vegan: This recipe would still be nice without the mozzarella. If you would like to add some creaminess, add a dollop of my vegan sour cream to individual servings before serving (see my cookbook, page 217).
Recommended equipment: An enameled cast iron Dutch oven is the perfect cooking pot for the cherry tomatoes (it’s also great for cooking pasta and soups/stews, and it will last forever).
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
I absolutely love this pasta!
I have had many run-ins lately with feeling a bit old since moving to a new church and spending time with lots more teenagers than usual. FBO is totally new to me, too. :-)
This is what I love to eat! Beautiful and so tasty.
Oh this is gorgeous! Almost looks too good to eat! Almost…
Yummers! How do you suggest reheating this for lunch the next day? I fear the mozzarella would melt too much.. .maybe eating cold is just fine?
Great question! I like this salad chilled, or at room temperature, or reheated… I like the melted mozzarella.
What a beautiful recipe! I love the simplicity – I bet it really lets the flavors shine. Oh, and I listened to that TED talk, too. That was something I think every person needs to hear before they’re 25.
Thank you, Olivia! Yes, I agree, I really wish I had watched that talk before I was 25. I stayed in a lousy relationship for far too long in my early twenties. Learned the hard way not to do that again. :)
No mention of heating the olive oil in the pan before adding the tomatoes, but is that what you meant? In the summer I put halved or diced tomotoes in a bowl with salt and olive oil cover it with plastic wrap and leave it out in the hot sun 30-40 min. Pour the hot pasta over it – it’s a great no cook sauce!
Thank you for pointing out that omission! Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Your summer tomato sauce technique sounds amazing.
I LOVE this sauce idea!!! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Jessica! Hope you’ll get a chance to try it soon.
This looks brilliantly simple and delicious. Thanks for the idea!
Love the simplicity to this! Caprese anything has my name all over it!
This looks simply and lovely – meals that come together quickly in summer are wonderful. I also love the look of the wholewheat fusilli. Gorgeous!
Ah! So fresh + delicious. Perfect for this time of year for sure. I never get sick of recipes like this. Funny story about your bro. Hope you had fun hangin’! ;)
Hi Kate! I just found your blog and I love it. I’m a vegetarian as well so I’m about to raid your recipe list! Seriously, you have a beautiful site and this pasta is deliciously simple. Great work!
Thanks, Sarah! Glad you found my blog!
I agree on the basil + tomato combo – pure brilliance! I’m not such a big cheese kinda girl, but have been making Caprese-minus-the-cheese salads a lot over the past couple of weeks! I love the simplicity of your recipe, and of course the gorgeous photos too! My sister is turning 22 this year and I’m going to be 25 in August, and even she has the ability to make me feel old sometimes! I think I need to check out the 20 vs 30 links you posted!
Mmmmm now that is all I want to eat haha
xo Jennifer
Firstly, love the white balsamic twist…. this sounds absolutely delicious. You are so good at life! Secondly, 30 is not the new 20 (I havent seen the TED Talk yet…) because I was an idiot at 20, and managed to run off my now-husband then-boyfriend because of the shenannigans I pulled. 30 is having a few things out of many — at least — figured out :)
Brothers are amazing for so many reasons. I had a dream last night with my brother and I surviving a scary earthquake. I should call him!
So fresh!! I love caprese anything and this is beautiful!
Great idea to sauté the tomatoes until they burst. Caprese salads are something I look forward to every summer…the simplicity of the flavors is what great summertime dining is all about!
I love anything Caprese, this is summer in a bowl!
Perfect summer recipe. Also love Meg Jay’s “The Defining Decade” — should be required reading for every twenty-something.
Oh, I didn’t know she had a book out! Just added it to my wishlist. Thank you.
Ooooooooohheck YES. I’m going to cry until you feed this to me.
Ha, I love the story of your brother’s visit. So spot on for a 20-year old guy. And still in my young 20’s myself, I’m all about affordable, but awesome meals like this.
This is just my kind of recipe! I’m also imagining it with the leftover smoked mozzarella in my fridge. Yum!
Love your site, and also this gorgeous recipe! Sounds delicious :)
My sister is 17 so I totally know what you mean about that naive idealism. It’s kind of cute and refreshing…but sometimes I also just want to shake her a little. :)
Caprese salad is my summer favorite. This sounds fabulous.
Yeah, I was tempted to tell my brother to check himself and to define a more realistic concept of success. Instead, I suggested we get ice cream. :)
Great recipe and easily the most empowering TED talk of all time!
So empowering! I only wish I’d watched it in my early twenties.
This looks like the perfect splurge meal!
What a delicious idea for a pasta salad!
Hi Kate–so excited to try this recipe. But, just an FYI–for whatever reason I can’t access your blog on my iPad. I don’t know if it’s the ads or something on my end. The pages show up but you can’t scroll down. Just thought you’d like to know in case anyone else is having this problem. I love to use my iPad when I’m cooking, but I can’t on your site. Thanks
Hey Megan, thank you so much for the feedback on the iPad version of the site. It is kind of confusing, but you can see more by flicking the page over instead of scrolling down. I was worried that option wouldn’t be evident, so I’ll bring it up with the developers. The recipe view isn’t ideal, but they will be launching an optimized recipe viewer sometime in the next couple of months!
This totally made me laugh, Kate. There’s only 4 years between my brother and I, but he came to visit me when he was 20, and we had a very similar visit. I love the kid dearly, but he hasn’t totally grown out of all his college-student ways…although he’s left some of them behind.
The burst cherry tomatoes are such a smart addition to this – must try this technique!
I have been eating caprese-anything like it’s my 9-5 job this summer, so this is definitely a must try!
(Also – I watched the “30 is not the new 20” video a few weeks ago with some friends. . . We were all so engrossed with what she was saying, you could’ve heard a pin drop. Such an awesome talk!)
Cooking the tomatoes a little before tossing with the pasta is such a great idea! I just love simple summer pastas, so this is perfect.
It was amazing!
I actually used the whole package of wheat pasta (16 oz), so that I could have leftovers. I recommend this.
So fresh and delicious! Thanks, Kate.
Thanks for commenting! It’s great to get some feedback on this recipe. I haven’t heard much from readers about it, but I think it’s delicious!
What a great pasta! So easy to and quick to make. Great for a family dinner on a busy night.
Thanks, Shannon! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the recipe!
Oh dear. Very hungry now!
I rarely eat pasta but for an occasional treat, but this was Oh Em Gee delicious!! I quartered the tomatoes and cooked them a little longer than the recipe called for. My husband is already asking me to make it again!
That’s great to hear! Thanks, Cindi!
Just tried it tonight for dinner. So delicious! Although, the tomatoes took alot longer than 5min to burst in my olive oil.
Glad you enjoyed it, Dures! Either your cooking temperature was lower than mine or your tomatoes were bigger than mine. Regardless, glad it turned out well!
I saw this recipe on Giada.
I don’t doubt that she has a similar recipe. I always cite my sources of recipe inspiration, though, and Giada wasn’t one of them.
That list on buzzfeed is amazing!! I live in a city that is home to a Big-10 university and used to work in a restaurant where I was one of 3 employees over the age of 23. We used to joke about how all we wanted to talk about was what we heard on NPR that morning and everyone else chatted about how drunk they got the previous night. I’ll take NPR, thank you very much! :o)
Haha! I can relate, Mary. I used to work at a college bar… although, I was definitely guilty of some late-night shenanigans myself.
Hello! So I was looking at your recipes for a good vegetarian dish to make for my mother, who is stuck in bed because if her Multiple Sclerosis. I had already made her a healthy breakfast, so I wanted to make her a healthy lunch as well! So as I was looking for the ingredients to make this delicious dish, I realized we don’t have any cherry tomatoes left. So I, a 13, soon to be 14-year-old girl(one more week!) was wondering: is there any possible way to substitute the tomatoes with something else?? Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Hi Sydney, I’m so sorry I didn’t see your comment earlier. I think tomatoes are pretty essential to this dish, but I hope you found a solution! Your mom is lucky to have such a great caretaker.
I made this tonight and it was so delicious! But I did change it up a bit, since I wanted more vegetables. So I added baby spinach, chopped radishes, and roasted eggplant. Also subbed out the mozzerella for feta, because that was what I had.
Thank you, Olivia! The more veggies, the better, if you ask me. :)
I loved this pasta! It was so easy and fast to make, and so fresh even when I heated it up the next couple of days. I’ll definitely be making this again.
Thank you, Rachel! Glad to hear it!
Hi,
I am getting to make this recipe for the caprese pasta salad and wanted to verify that it only calls for 6 oz. of pasta. This doesn’t look like much for the amount of tomatoes…. thanks
That’s correct. I like a lot of add-ins when I’m cooking pasta.
Replace “a lot” with “excessive”. I used half the amount of tomatoes your recipe called for and my pasta:tomato:mozzarella volume ratio in the end was nearly 1:1:1. It’s your recipe: make what you like, but please don’t post misleading pictures like that.
James, these photos represent how the recipe turned out for me as written.
This recipe is perfect! I tried it with diced regular sized tomatoes and vegan mozzarella and I love it!
Awesome, thanks Erin! :)
this looks sooooo good but is there anything i can use other than tomatoes? i’ve never really been a fan of those stinkers. :-)
Excellent! I made it just as you said. Will definitely be a favorite.
Perfect! Thanks, Cam.
Great recipe as I said before. The next time (and there will be a next time) I would wait till the pasta cools before putting in the mozzarella balls.
Hi Kate! I love your blog and every recipe I have tried and today I am noting down the shopping list for trying this recipe and do have to say that for someone like me, who doesnt live in the US it is quite complicated to come to the exact amounts and measurements. I managed to buy some measuring cups with US standard but when it comes to pints and/or ounces it is a nightmare having to check online for references of how many grams or cups that you account for. It would be absolutely great if you could any sidr notes as to how many tomatoes or how many grams would be equivalent, etc, in consideration to your international fans. :) Thank you
Hi, Bruna! I’m so sorry to hear that you’re disappointed by the measurements. Incorporating metric measurements isn’t as easy as it seems; it’s an extra layer of complexity, effort and length. And, it adds more room for human error. I hope to start offering metric measurements on the blog someday when technology makes it a little easier to do so. I’m working on it!
This dish was so simple to make and was absolutely delicious. Fresh and light flavours with a bit of heartiness added by the pasta and mozza.
I cheated and just broke off pieces of a mozza brick instead of paying the extra money for someone to roll it into balls for me. Turned out amazing if only slightly less visually appealing.
Sounds like a great way to make it your own! It matters what it tastes like. I am happy it turned out well. Thank you, Lauren for your review.
This looks so good I can’t wait to try it!
Let me know what you think!
I will! :)
Do you mean 16 oz of pasta? This looks delicious, going to try today!
Actually only 6oz :) Let me know what you think when you try it!
This is so simple, but amazing!
Great to hear, Angel!
LOVE this recipe! Hands down my favorite quick and easy dinner. My favorite tweak is to swap out the pasta and mozzarella for a package of fresh three-cheese ravioli from my local market. Yum!
Thank you, Grace!