A Taste of Sustainability Recipe Spotlight

Caprese Salad and Sustainable Sourcing

Sometimes, sourcing ingredients sustainably is a lot of work — and for what seems like very little payoff. However, sourcing ingredients locally can be a huge step toward making your diet sustainable. Local sourcing reduces carbon emissions from ingredient transport, and is a great way to support local business. Likewise, raising your own ingredients can be a wonderful way to grow food and a sustainable culture in your own home, as we see in this recipe from Sarah Hutchison of Hillsborough, NC.

Recipe: Caprese Salad Prep Time: ~5 min.

Ingredients

2 large ripe tomatoes

10 basil leaves — washed

Mozzarella Cheese

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Assembly:

First, slice your mozzarella and tomatoes. Arrange tomatoes on a plate, and place your slices of mozzarella on top. Next, add your basil leaves on top — feel free to play around with presentation here: leaves could be finely shredded, or left whole as garnish. Then, drizzle tomatoes, cheese, and basil with olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

About the Chef: Sarah Hutchison

Sarah is the Associate Director of the Transatlantic Masters program at the UNC Center for European Studies. She and her family live in Hillsborough. She and her husband grow their own vegetables and herbs in the summer, and Sarah is very interested in the concept of energy transition as a potential route to reducing our carbon footprint.

For anyone interested in submitting a recipe, take a look at competition rules in our earlier blog post, and submit recipes at go.unc.edu/recipe. Be sure to post your recipes and share your experience on social media! Tag us at @UNCEurope and @UNC_IE, and use #ClimateAction and #ActNow !

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The Sustainable Recipe Challenge is an initiative co-sponsored by the UNC Center for European Studies, A Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, the UNC Institute for the Environment, and Carolina Cupboard.

This post was written by EURO Major Brett Harris