Thanks to Caprese, you probably know what a glorious combination fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and a balsamic drizzle is. (There’s a lot of freshness, okay?) But come on a journey with me — what if those tomatoes were instead marinated in an herby balsamic vinaigrette so that that incredible flavor settled into the very cell walls of the fruit? (Yes, it’s a fruit.) It’s as great as it sounds. In fact, it’s a revelation. And it’ll be your favorite staple side dish of the summer.

This takes you a teensy, weensy little bit more time than a basic Caprese salad will. Okay, it’s actually two hours more time, but the thing is that it’s just sitting and soaking in the goodness. That extra time is totally hands-off! You’ll want five or six tomatoes here, depending on their size, and you want to slice them pretty thick so they stand up to the marinating process.

The dressing is just a quick whisking together of some fresh herbs (parsley and basil), some balsamic, a little minced shallot, and some olive oil. Don’t turn to onion or garlic instead of the shallot here as tempted as you might be. The shallot is gentler and lets the other ingredients shine and we want it to be a supporting character, not the star.

Pour that dressing over the tomatoes and then pop them in the fridge for a couple of hours. While generally, the fridge is not the best place for a tomato’s texture and flavor, here we’re trying to change their structure a bit and let all that dressing soak in, so it works just fine. (It works just fine to leave them at room temp too.)

All that’s left to do is tear up some fresh mozzarella and tuck it in between the tomatoes, scatter on a few more fresh herbs if you’d like, and enjoy. But as easy as this salad is, enjoying it is the easy part.