Caprese Pasta

I am really weird about tomatoes. I don't like them plain or uncooked, and if they are they must be finely diced and they can only be on salads. I am not one of the people that can eat them like an apple. However, I will eat sun dried tomatoes or eat them when they are in a sauce. I love fresh mozzarella and basil has this fantastic fresh flavor that I can't get enough of. Sounds like I would be the perfect candidate for loving caprese salads, right? Sadly, no because of the large slices of tomato that are the main ingredient. Well in my adventures on Pinterest, I found this delicious sounding caprese pasta recipe. I love pasta, so I decided to give it a try.

No only is it a super recipe that you can almost just throw together, but it is light and has lots of fresh flavors going on. The recipe is from How Sweet It Is, so you can find the whole recipe on my Pinterest board. While you are cooking the pasta, you mix up the sauce, toss in the pasta and bake. What's even more fantastic is that there is not much preparation involved. For me, it was just cubing the mozzarella and slicing the basil. The recipe calls for a jar of pasta sauce and halved grape tomatoes. Since I have a weird relationship with tomatoes, I decided to use Italian style diced tomatoes and no pasta sauce. I don't really like a lot of sauce, so I was afraid that it would be overwhelming. I also opted to not top with mozzarella slices before baking to cut down on calories. I sprinkled some extra parmesan on instead.

Overall, this was a fantastic recipe that I will definitely make again. However, I do think that the pasta sauce is necessary to keep the pasta from drying out or being really bland. I just added some extra salt and pepper to mine. What's also really great is that you can substitute other types of cheese and fresh herbs. Put this caprese pasta at the top of your list to try the next time you are looking for a super simple, but impressive dinner.