Bresaola, melon and mozzarella salad

A very special recipe for summer. With a few simple touches, we can offer a very attractive and quality starter. This bresaola, melon and mozzarella salad is very easy and tasty, while refreshing and nutritious. It also allows several changes in the recipe, according to the available ingredients.

This salad is a variant of melon with prosciutto, a very popular starter in Italy. In this case we use bresaola, a typical dried meat from Valtellina region, produced from lean beef.

The recipe simply consists of serving the ingredients in a bowl, and seasoning them to taste with salt, pepper, lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. In all cases we will have a very tasty antipasto, but here are some suggestions to obtain a presentation that also seduces the eye.

Tips and tricks:

1. Serve the bresaola carpaccio as the base of the dish and decorate with the rest of the ingredients on top.
2. Otherwise, use the lamb’s lettuce as a base, as seen in the illustration photo. In that case, roll up the bresaola slices, trying that the bites of all three main ingredients are similar in size.
3. It’s possible to cut a mozzarella ball into small pieces, but it is much more attractive to serve the small bites that are sold as “pearls”.
4. Cut the melon into bite-sized pieces, or better yet, form balls with a portioner. If you don’t have one, you can use a similar tool, such as a coffee dispenser.
5. The sweetness of the indicated melon types pair perfectly with the salty meat, in addition to giving an excellent mix of colors to the presentation.
6. Another very good idea is to complement the salad with cherry tomatoes cut in half.
7. As in other similar dishes, it’s possible to replace the lamb’s lettuce with arugula (rucola). However, I ideally prefer the more subtle flavor of the former, to give more prominence to the sweet-salty combination of melon and meat.
8. With the same purpose, I prefer lemon juice to balsamic vinegar cream as a dressing.
9. You can replace the bresaola with raw ham, preferably from Parma.
10. Stracciatella is also very tasty instead of mozzarella. As it is less solid, in this case it should be served as a filling, placing a little inside each bresaola slice. If you can’t find it in the supermarket, you can check here how to make stracciatella at home.
11. The bresaola carpaccio or the bresaola and mascarpone rolls are other highly appreciated starters with the same dried meat as protagonist.