5-Ingredient Strawberry Caprese Pasta Salad

Elijah turns six. June 15th. Wait — Elijah was born in March 2020. His birthday is in March? No — the bio says June. Let me recalculate. Actually, looking back: the bio says Elijah was born "nine months later" after Sarah found out she was pregnant in October 2019. That puts birth around June/July 2020. In earlier weeks he turned 5 in June. So his birthday is mid-June. This week is late March — so it's not his birthday yet. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Spring. The season that Nashville does better than almost anywhere. The dogwoods blooming along Gallatin Pike. The windows of the restaurant propped open for the first time since October, letting in the air that smells like fresh-cut grass and warming concrete and possibility. Spring at Sarah's Table is: the patio. Not a real patio — the four feet of sidewalk in front of the restaurant where I put two mismatched chairs and a small table (found at a thrift store, painted by Jayden, the kind of outdoor seating that a food critic would call "rustic" and I call "cheap but charming"). The sidewalk patio seats: two people. Two people who want to eat cornbread in the sunshine. The two seats are always occupied. Always.

The spring menu: lighter. Chloe insisted. "People don't want heavy food in April, Mama." She's right and the rightness of a fourteen-year-old knowing seasonal food trends is: either natural talent or too much Instagram or both. Spring menu additions: a strawberry and spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette (my recipe — the vinaigrette is Earline's, sweet and sharp, the dressing that makes people eat spinach voluntarily). A grilled chicken sandwich with pimento cheese (James's idea — the man who smokes everything wanted to GRILL something, and the grilled chicken with pimento cheese is: Nashville on a bun). And Chloe's contribution: lemon bars. Not on the regular menu — a weekend special. The lemon bars are: sunshine in a square. Tart, sweet, buttery crust, powdered sugar on top that gets everywhere and makes customers look like they've been caught in a very localized snowstorm. The lemon bars sold out both weekends. Chloe smiled. The smile of a person who knows she's good at this. The smile of the future.

Jayden has been quieter since his birthday. Not the bad quiet — not the door-slamming, "whatever" quiet — but a different quiet. A thinking quiet. He comes to the restaurant after school, sits on his stool, and writes. Not fire truck stories anymore (those are still there, still on the shelf, still being read by kids in the reading corner). Now he writes: observations. Short paragraphs about the people who come into the restaurant. The woman who always orders the chicken and dumplings and cries while she eats it (Jayden asked me why she cries; I said, "The food reminds her of someone she lost; the crying is the remembering"). The old man who comes in at 11:05 every Tuesday and orders coffee and cornbread and reads the newspaper for two hours (Jayden calls him "The Regular" in his journal and describes his hands — "big hands, the kind that built something, maybe a house, maybe a family, the knuckles are stories"). The knuckles are stories. My eleven-year-old son wrote that. The boy has: a writer's eye. The boy sees people the way I see ingredients — as things that can become something beautiful if you pay attention.

Dinner: the strawberry spinach salad. At home. With grilled chicken on top. The spring meal. The meal that tastes like April and light and the relief of winter being over. Elijah ate the chicken and pushed the spinach around his plate with the resignation of a child who knows his mother will not let him leave the table until he eats three bites of green. Three bites. The compromise. The negotiation of parenting: you will eat three bites of spinach and in exchange I will not comment on the fact that your entire plate is otherwise orange. The deal is: struck. The spring is: here.

The strawberry spinach salad I added to the spring menu this year came from the same instinct that drove Earline’s balsamic vinaigrette — the belief that the best spring food should taste like relief. When I make something similar at home, I lean into the strawberries even more, letting them carry the whole dish the way they carry April itself. This five-ingredient strawberry caprese pasta salad is that idea made simple: sweet berries, fresh basil, creamy mozzarella, a drizzle of something good — the kind of meal that even Elijah will consider, at least long enough to eat three bites.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 oz rotini or penne pasta
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
8 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
3 tablespoons good-quality balsamic glaze
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain, rinse with cold water, and set aside to cool completely.
Prep the strawberries. Hull and slice strawberries into halves or quarters depending on size. Pat dry gently if they’re very wet so the salad doesn’t become watery.
Combine. In a large bowl, toss the cooled pasta with the sliced strawberries, mozzarella pieces, and torn basil leaves.
Dress and season. Drizzle the balsamic glaze over the salad and toss gently to coat. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve. Serve immediately at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to 30 minutes before serving. Add a little extra balsamic glaze right before plating if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

5-Ingredient Strawberry Caprese Pasta Salad — Spring on a Plate, Just Like Sarah’s Table