Level Up Your Caprese Salad With One Simple Ingredient

Put together some juicy heirloom tomatoes, a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and sprigs of basil, then top with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and you have the ultimate Italian appetizer — a Caprese salad. It's a lovely preamble to any dinner and not just the fancy ones. But if you have someone over that you want to impress (or you just want to treat yourself to something nice), one trick that you can use to level up your Caprese salad is to serve it in half an avocado!

Forget using a plate. Pack your Caprese into the pitted core of a halved avocado, so for every summery and fruity mouthful of salad, you get a slice of buttery avocado to go with it, too. Aside from giving the salad an entirely new dimension of flavor, we guarantee that you'll wow any guest coming over with the beautiful presentation that's straight out of the menu of a high-end restaurant.

Since the avocado plays such a starring role, you'll want to be extra careful with which one you pick as your salad holder. It can be disappointing to go through all the troubles but end up with a lackluster meal because the avocado's either too tough or mushy.

You can tell it's "the one" firstly by the color: The skin should be a very dark green or an inky black color. When you pick it up, the skin should feel rough under your fingers. Lastly, give it a squeeze — a good avocado will yield slightly to pressure but quickly bounce back into shape (avoid any that'll develop bruises or dents when you squeeze them).

However, if the salad is for a future meal, you can buy a slightly underripe avocado and ripen it at home. You're not short of options on how to ripen it — just pick one of these six tricks for ripening avocadoes at home. If all goes according to plan, the avocado should be ready by the time you're ready to start cooking. Timing this perfectly can be tricky, though, so unless you're very confident in your avocado-ripening skills, it's often easier to buy a ripe one and use it right away.

To get your avocado ready, start by halving it as you normally would and carefully pit it. This leaves a natural hollow perfect for holding your salad on both halves of the avocado. For a quick and easy version, you can simply fill this pocket with your prepared Caprese salad, add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, and you're done.

If the pocket's too small for all the Caprese salad you've made, you can go one step further and carve out the avocado to give your salad more room. From the center, scoop out the avocado flesh from each half until you have a space that's big enough to fit your Caprese filling. You can make it however big you want, but we recommend leaving a thin border of fleshy avocado to make the whole thing look more appetizing.

As for the scooped-out avocado, don't worry, they won't be going to waste. Just cut all you have into bite-sized pieces and mix them with your Caprese filling. Set the stuffed, seasoned, and dressing-drizzled avocado halves on a plate, and your Caprese-stuffed avocadoes are ready to impress!