Day 4: Tomato Mozzarella Skewers

It’s Day 4 of my 12 Day of Christmas, and the next 3 days are going to be all about simple and easy appetizers for your holiday parties. 

First up, tomato mozzarella skewers.  This is so easy and adaptable that it’s not really even a “recipe”.   I love these little guys because 1) they taste fresh and delicious 2) they look impressive but are so easy and 3) they’re Christmas colors!

Tomato and Mozzarella Skewers

Time: 10–20 minutes to assemble, Yield: as many as you want!

All you need is:

• Small mozzarella balls (bocconcini) – buy them from the olive/cheese bar area of your grocery store.  Mine were already marinated which was a huge help!  If you can’t find them premarinated, toss them with some olive oil, red pepper flakes, and fresh or dried herbs (basil, parsley, oregano – whatever you have on hand)
• Cherry/grape tomatoes
• Fresh basil or oregano leaves – I would absolutely recommend basil, but for some reason my grocery store was out of it, so I used a little fresh oregano – use what you can find!

In the past I’ve just used tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, but since I had them on hand I also added some:

• Mini pepperoni – I had these on hand from a different recipe and I thought they would make the perfect addition – right color and right size.  They are super cute if you can find them – I think they are Hormel brand? And they were with all the other pre-packaged pepperoni
• Green olives  – again, I had these on hand, and they were the right color, so I threw a few on

Now here’s the fun part: assembling.  For the mozzarella and tomatoes I left some whole and cut some in half, just to add variation.  I cut the olives in half since they were the very large kind, but if you have smaller ones you probably don’t need to cut them.

Then I amused myself trying to make no two the same.  The simple things in life.

I recommend giving them a drizzle of olive oil before serving.  I added a little more olive oil back to the container the mozzarella was marinated in – which gave me a nice herbed oil to drizzle on top. 

So simple, so easy, and so beautiful! 

Matt couldn’t resist.