Smoky Golden Beet Caprese (Smoked Olive Oil)

This recipe is an update of an old classic. Instead of using tomatoes like a normal caprese, we used our new favorite vegetable: the golden beet. Golden beets are a little difficult to come by so if they are unavailable, try regular beets or resort back to tomatoes.

What you need:

• 3 boiled and peeled golden beets

• Fresh mozzarella cheese

• Fresh basil

• Smoked olive oil

• Pomegranate balsamic vinegar

• Salt and pepper to taste

The prep time takes much longer than the assembly due to cooking the beets. The beets need about 1 hour to steam with skins on. After they are easy to poke with a fork, remove from steamer and let cool. Once cool, skins will easily peel off using just your hands.

Next, cut the beets in thin slices.

Place beets on a plate and stack the cheese and basil on top of each slice.

Now it's time to drizzle; very lightly use a bit of smoked olive oil over your beet caprese salad. The amount of oil depends on how much you like the flavor of the smoke but err on the side of less because it only takes about 1 tablespoon to add lots of smokey flavor.

Next add a splash of pomegranate balsamic vinegar.

Lastly, add a bit of salt and pepper to taste.

Tasters of this recipe liked it both before and after the balsamic was added. They also really appreciated the taste of smoke on this very vegetarian classic. We prefer it with the balsamic; the flavor of smoke is slightly masked but we think for this smoke should be an underlying flavor and not an “in your face” one.