How to Make Sweet Bell Pepper (peperonata) Salad

Italian Peperonata is a rustic Southern Italian dish of stewed bell peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic served at room temperature. I didn’t have any buffalo mozzarella on hand so I used parmesan.

First you quarter 2 red bell peppers and 2 yellow peppers and remove the stalk, seeds and white pith. Then you slice into thin strips about 1/2 wide.

Second, take 2 plum tomatoes (I used one large tomato that I had on hand) quarter it, remove seeds and chop the flesh into small cubes.

Fry 3 whole garlic cloves in oil until golden. Remove from pan and set aside. Add thinly sliced red onion and cook until translucent.

I may have a few onion slices a little to thick…it does not need to be perfect!

Then add in the the sliced peppers, 2 bay leaves and fried garlic. Cover and cook for 15 minutes or so until the peppers are soft but still holding shape.

Remove the lid and add chopped tomatoes, red wine vinegar, sea salt, sugar. Cook for another 10 minutes. The recipe called for capers but I didn’t have any. At this point add in handful of sweet cherry tomatoes. Take the pan off the heat. The hot peppers will soften the cherry tomatoes as it sits to cool.

Once cool add in toasted pine nuts, small bunch of fresh basil and salt and pepper to taste. This dish reminded me so much of eating in Italy on our last trip. Lots of olive oil and fresh ingredients!

Here is another one of my favorite salad recipes

I had half of a French baguette leftover and I cut it into small chunks. Then I fried the bread cubes in olive oil and sprinkled them with kosher salt.

I love big crunchy croutons.

Serve this sweet pepper salad by placing arugula lettuce in a bowl and layer the peppers on top. Top with croutons, pine nuts and parmesan shavings.

The recipe calls for Buffalo mozzarella but I didn’t have any so I used some shaved parmesan.

oops! I forgot to take a photo with the croutons and pine nuts on the salad. I love this bowl that I bought while traveling on the island of Capri in Italy. It is so beautiful there and the lemons grown as big as grapefruit there!

This is the cookbook I bought on Amazon and I am super impressed with the recipes. I will be sharing more of the recipes that I will be trying out in the coming weeks.