Avocado Caprese Salad with Balsamic Reduction

It’s easy to overeat during lunch time. You’ve been up since 6am, work is stressful, you’ve already eaten your daily intake of healthy snacks but you’re still starving.
And you know what? Everyone makes bad decisions when they’re starving.
Your mouth is watering, the stomach aches with hunger.
You walk into the Deli.
The options are endless.
Everything looks good.
Even things you normally don’t eat look good. Like Fried Chicken Sandwich or the Italian Meatball Sub with Double Provolone Cheese — you know, just to throw some examples out there.

Your mouth starts watering even more. Your original plan to have a healthy lunch, like a salad, is long gone.
You spend an hour debating, picking up things, putting things back, you can’t make a decision, all the while you’re getting even hungrier.
After all that debate, you end up devouring a footlong sub and you don’t even know how that happened.
Seriously, how that happened?
What about the Kale Salad with Root Veggies and Antioxidant Vinaigrette you planned to eat?
Where is it?
The hell, you were S to the T to the ARVING.
Forget the salad.

But there’s another scenario.
One that involves one of the greatest salads ever.
So delicious, so filling, so light, so very good for you.
Enters the Avocado Caprese Salad with Balsamic Reduction.
A very fancy name for a very simple salad.
A salad that comes together in minutes (balsamic reduction excluded) and that you can bring to work with you for lunch, so you don’t have to worry about going to the Deli and making poor choices. All the while saving money and eating a clean and nutritious meal.
Sounds cool, right?

And don’t worry, you can still make poor choices at 3am when you’re blind drunk and a greasy meatball sub is the right thing to gobble up. Because you know, nothing soaks up alcohol better than greasy food (like you need me to tell you that!)

Avocado Caprese Salad with Balsamic Reduction                                                    Print this recipe!

Inspired by JoyfulHealthyEats

Ingredients
Serves 4

Balsamic Reduction

2 cups / 500 ml balsamic vinegar

Salad

4 cups / 6 oz. / 170 gr fresh spring mix salad
½ cup fresh mozzarella pearls (small balls), whole or halved
½ cup cherry tomatoes, whole or halved
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced
2 large handfuls fresh basil, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil
Fine grain sea salt
Ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Balsamic Reduction

In a small saucepan, bring balsamic vinegar to a boil over medium-low heat.
Cook for about 20 to 30 minutes, partially covered, until balsamic vinegar has reduced to a thicker glaze.
Cool and store covered in the refrigerator.

Salad

In four small bowls (or one large bowl), divide the spring mix, basil avocado, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella pearls.
Drizzle olive oil over the top of the salad, followed by drizzle of balsamic reduction.
Sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Serve immediately.

Nutrition facts

One serving yields 259 calories, 22 grams of fat, 5 grams of carbs, and 2 grams of protein.