Cardamom and Tea

Peach Caprese

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This peach caprese brings together ripe peaches, juicy tomatoes, and fresh herbs. It’s inspired by the many peachy salads making the rounds this summer, but it adds a few twists: You can use either pomegranate molasses or balsamic reduction for a little bit of sweetness and tanginess. Chopped pistachios add a lot of crunch. And those herbs can be any combination of basil and/or mint.

Read on to decide whether this is the peach caprese for you, or jump to the recipe if you’re ready to go.

Reasons to love this peach caprese:

1. Fresh summer ingredients with minimal prep

This recipe comes together in a flash and is my favorite way to make use of summer produce when it’s at its peak. But it’s also a great way to dress up out-of-season so-so peaches and tomatoes (as long as they’re good enough quality).

2. No cooking required

Perfect for the dog days of summer!

3. Sweet, tangy, creamy, crunchy

Every bite has a lot going for it. The sweet peachy flavors highlight the tomatoes’ natural sweetness. The pistachio contrasts beautifully with all the soft, creamy textures. The herbs bring a ton of excitement.

4. It’s pretty darn adaptable

This peach caprese lends itself well to incorporating in other fun ingredients. Swap out the mozzarella for buratta or another creamy, fresh cheese. Add a few cucumber or watermelon slices in place of the peaches or tomatoes. Use whatever sweet/tart drizzle you’d like. Use cilantro instead of basil or mint. Take it in whatever direction sounds good to you!

5. It’s impressive but easy

It’s the perfect thing to make for guests—easy yet impressive! You can plate everything ahead, refrigerate, and then dress it right before serving.

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Peach Caprese

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  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Total Time: 15 minutes
  • Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • Two 120g balls of mozzarella (240g/8.5oz total)
  • 3 peaches
  • 2 medium tomatoes
  • Salt, to taste
  • A few sprigs of mint and/or basil
  • Pomegranate molasses or balsamic glaze
  • Ground pistachios

Instructions

  1. Slice the mozzarella, peaches, and tomatoes, and arrange on a plate. Season with salt, to taste.
  2. Sprinkle with the basil or mint leaves and any small tender attached stems (discard any large woody stems).
  3. Season with a pinch of salt. Drizzle with pomegranate molasses or balsamic glaze, and top with ground pistachios.

Notes

To make ahead: You can slice everything and arrange the mozzarella, peaches, and tomatoes on a plate ahead of time, but hold off on the salt, mint, pomegranate molasses, and pistachios until the last minute. An undressed plate can keep like this for up to 6 hours to serve to guests, but even the dressed leftovers will keep super well for a couple days (just maybe not for guests).

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2025 note: I originally published this recipe 8 August 2019, but I recently reworked it slightly to make it more adaptable. Now you can use either balsamic reduction or pomegranate molasses and basil or mint. It works great either way, with any combination of these ingredients.

Sesame Ginger Dressing

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Sesame ginger dressing just makes everything taste better. Salads, sandwiches, grain bowls—it’s always a hit. This version uses tahini as the base, which gives it a creamy texture and a rich, nutty flavor (and bonus, it’s vegan!). It’s great on crisp vegetables, perfect over soba noodles, and great with herbs like cilantro and basil.

Read on for my best tips for sesame ginger success + ways to use it, or jump to the recipe.

sesame ginger sauce
sesame ginger sauce

Sesame ginger dressing tips for success

1. Use frozen minced ginger and garlic as a shortcut.

Short of buying a bottle of (likely far inferior) store-bought dressing, frozen garlic and ginger are the fastest route to getting this one on the table. Powdered versions just don’t work the same. Grab a couple frozen blister packs of ginger and garlic and you’re halfway there! I’ll even allow bottled lime juice, since it’s such a small amount. The rest of the ingredients are just poured straight from their bottles—easy peasy.

2. Know your tahini.

Tahini is a little quirky—when you start to add water to it, it actually thickens up before it thins out as you add more water. Then as it sits, it thickens up a tad more. So if you’re eyeballing quantities, just know the texture goes from thin (plain tahini) → thick (tahini with a little water) → thin (tahini with a lot of water) → thicker again (tahini with a lot of water that’s rested). If you add too much water, it may truly thin out too much, but it takes a surprising amount.

Also, give your tahini a really good stir before measuring. If you don’t mix it, you’ll end up with either too much oil or too much sludge, and neither will work.

3. The water seems like a lot, but it’s essential.

You can experiment with adding a little bit less if you want a punchier sauce, but 3/4 cup of water is not a mistake. The rest of the flavors are extremely powerful, and they need that water to balance everything out.

4. Scaling up and down

This recipe is easy to scale up! But some of the quantities make it a little tricky to scale down (if you’re measuring with cups and tablespoons). It can be done though! I have quantities for a half-recipe in the notes at the bottom of my cold soba noodles post, which uses this sesame ginger dressing. The half recipe has a tad more vinegar and tad less lime juice to normalize some of those odd volumetric measurements.

But I highly recommend making a full batch of sesame ginger dressing, because you’ll never run out of ways to use it…

sesame ginger sauce with spring rolls
sesame ginger sauce with baked purple sweet potato
spring rolls
cold soba noodles

Ways to use it

  • On a baked sweet potato with sliced green onions and hot peppers
  • As a dipping sauce for spring rolls
  • Over silken tofu with green onions and cilantro (or even better, tofu with perilla!)
  • With cold soba noodles
  • Drizzled over a sweet potato broccoli grain bowl
  • Massaged into a kale salad with roasted sweet potatoes and sesame seeds
  • Drizzled over sautéed broccoli and sprinkled with sesame seeds
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Sesame Ginger Dressing

sesame ginger sauce with spring rolls
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  • Yield: 2¾ cups [660 g]

Ingredients

  • 1 cup [250 g] tahini
  • ¾ cup [175 g] water
  • ⅓ cup [80 g] rice vinegar
  • 3 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 Tbsp honey
  • 2 Tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 Tbsp lime juice
  • 3 Tbsp minced fresh ginger
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed through a press

Instructions

  1. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the tahini, water, vinegar, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, lime juice, ginger, and garlic. It will start out watery, but will thicken as you continue to whisk, and will thicken further in the refrigerator.
  2. This sauce will keep for 3 to 4 days in the fridge, or at least 3 months in the freezer in a tightly sealed container.

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Psst… by the way, I love this recipe so much, I ended up including it in my cookbook, Piecemeal.

If you like this recipe as much as I do, you might like my book! It’s full of mix-and-match recipes and inspiration for fun and easy meals. There are recipes in it for spring rolls, baked sweet potato, and cold soba noodles, which all use this sesame ginger dressing as their base.