Trying to prioritize healthy or fresh foods in your home-cooked meals during this pandemic can be challenging, working mostly out of the pantry can get old. Thankfully, it’s summertime. It’s a really warm and late summertime here in Texas which means fruits like mangoes, peaches, and nectarines are in season and on sale! It’s not the first thing on our minds to keep track of what’s in season throughout the year; an easy way to check, use your local grocery store’s mobile app. Our weekly ad had great savings on nectarines so I jumped on it. How the heck do you make it meal though? The answer, CHEESE.

A yum-yum note: fruits with pits go well with soft and creamy cheeses. Think plums and goat cheese, peaches with ricotta, apricots, and brie. You can mix it up in these flavor combinations.

Some good staples to have in your pantry for this recipe: oil, vinegar, honey. This is a pretty easy recipe so you can use whatever oils or vinegars you like, what I already had in my pantry was olive oil and apple cider vinegar. I mixed a couple of tablespoons of each and added some local Texas honey in a small bowl and my vinaigrette was ready.

Now, for the nectarines and mozzarella. I sliced a nectarine into wedges and browned them in a little bit of butter, a sprinkle of salt, then set them aside to cool. You’ll want fresh mozzarella for this recipe, you can tear it into small pieces and drop them into a bowl with your cooled off nectarines. Honestly, you could even use string cheese. Whatever works! Drizzle your vinaigrette all over and eat it up.

Use what’s available to you. I added tomatoes because I wanted to finish the very last one in my fridge. If you’re feeling fancy, another yum-yum note: creamy cheeses go well with herby freshness like mint or basil. You can add saltiness with prosciutto for some extra fancy too.

Salads are really versatile so you don’t have to stick to the salad green script every time. Change it up! Play around with those yum-yummy tips and comment below what your favorite combinations are. I’m off to finally digging into my salad now, wishing you a happy belly!