Spring Fling: Melon Salad

My Melon Salad is a trio of luscious sweet melons laced with a lime honey mixture and topped with mint.  This is a salad that is perfect all Spring and Summer long!

Melon Salad

Everyone needs a simple yet scrumptiously delicious fruit salad in their arsenal.  This melon salad is just that and more.  Made with readily available cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon, this salad is dressed up with a petite dainty cut, and a jazzed up mint, honey, lime topping.

The small dice of the fruit makes this the perfect salad to serve for Mother's Day, a bridal shower, graduation party, a romantic picnic, brunch or summer party.  The taste is one everyone will enjoy!

What Ingredients do I need?

• watermelon
• cantaloupe
• honeydew melon
• fresh limes
• honey
• orange champagne vinegar or champagne vinegar
• fresh mint

Substitutions and Variations

• Change the serving size by cutting the measurement in 1/2 for a 3 person portion or doubling for 12 people. 

• Leave out the mint if you don't prefer it.

• Use a melon baller tool to create pretty round melon balls.

• Leave the melons on a bite size or larger scale  

• Use other combinations of melon such as Snow Leopard, Sugar Kiss, Kiss Limon, there are a lot of summer varieties that will all work well.

• Use white wine vinegar if you don't have champagne vinegar

Kitchen Tips and Notes

• Plan ahead as this salad will need to sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend.

• For a shortcut, buy pre-cut melon and slice them into bite sized pieces or melon balls- you will need to adjust the lime honey mixture accordingly to the amount of melon.

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Melon Salad

Serves 6

1 mini seedless watermelon
1 cantaloupe
1 honeydew melon
zest of 1 lime
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 3-4 limes)
3 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons Champagne vinegar
2 Tablespoon fresh mint, chopped

Peel and de-seed all three melons.  Chop the melons in to petite cubes, about 1/2".  Place melons in a large bowl and combine.

In a small bowl, which together the lime zest, lime juice, honey, and vinegar.  Whisk together until the honey dissolves.  Pour the mixture over the melon.  Add chopped mint and stir until it is all combined well and covered with the lime/honey mixture.  

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, stirring once.  Serve in a large bowl or individual glasses/cups.

Summer Fresh Recipe Series: Refreshing Melon Salad

Refreshingly cool, sweet melons mixed with onions and feta top a bed of baby spinach and doused with the most flavorful citrus garlic vinaigrette make one heck of a side dish!

In the summer when the heat has you beat and it's too hot to even think about cooking, I've got a solution to the side dish dilemma!  A nice, easy salad is in order.  But let's mix things up a bit and make this salad that is both tangy and sweet, cool and crisp, and oh soooo refreshing!

REFRESHING MELON SALAD

This dish is my 11th installment of my Summer Fresh Recipe Series and this one is another winner.  Quick and easy is the name of the game, and using summer's fresh produce it what it's all about with this recipe.  The feature here is fresh melon.  I used watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew, but you could use any melons you choose.  To give this a more "salad" feel I included a bed of baby spinach and sprinkled in some red onion and feta cheese. All this is doused with a wonderful citrus garlic vinaigrette  which is made from orange juice and lime juice with some added flavor from the garlic and sweetness from some honey.  Then we top off the entire salad with some torn mint leaves which brings out the fruit flavors so well.

This is a side dish that goes along with just about anything you like.  Fish, chicken, beef, and pork will all be perfect entrees.  This can be eaten cold or at room temperature.  You can make this ahead just leave off the dressing and the mint until you are ready to serve.  

Enjoy all the fruit that summer has to offer.  We just can't enough!  Take a look at my other installment from my Summer Fresh Recipe Series below.

Enjoy!  

Summer Fresh Recipe Series

• Peach Blueberry & Ginger Crisp
• Grilled Sirloin Steak with Garlic Herb Vinaigrette
• Grilled Vegetable Platter
• Sirloin Steak topped with Herb Salsa with Roasted Potatoes & Carrots
• Lemon Blueberry Scones
• Grilled Honey Ginger Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Apricots & Brocollini
• Lemon Raspberry Dutch Baby
• Simple Mediterranean Salad
• Grilled Chicken Kofta
• Greek Cobb Salad

Refreshing Melon Salad

serves 4

Ingredient Checklist

2 cups baby spinach

1/4 cup red onion, sliced thinly 
1 cup watermelon, sliced

1 cup cantaloupe, sliced

1 cup honeydew, sliced
1/4 cup feta cheese (2 oz.), crumbled

1 Tbsp fresh mint, torn into small pieces

Dressing:

2 Tbsp. orange juice
1/2 Tbsp. fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 Tbsp. honey
1 clove garlic, minced
pinch of kosher salt and ground black pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil

On a small platter arrange spinach so that it forms a base and covers the platter.

In a small bowl add sliced onions and cover with water.  Allow to sit while you prepare the rest of the salad.

Arrange melon slices over the spinach.  To make the dressing:  Add to a small bowl, orange juice, lime juice, honey, garlic, salt & pepper, and olive oil.  Whisk until emulsified.  Set aside.

Remove onion from the water, draining off any excess moisture.  Add on top of the melon.  Spread around crumbled feta cheese.  Drizzle with dressing and then add the torn mint leaves.  Serve immediately.

adapted from:  Triple Melon Salad

Beth's Simple Fruit Salad

Yum

When Spring and Summer hit we are in Heaven around here because it is "Fruit Season"!

Both MGG and I are big fruit lovers and can't wait until the abundance of fruit produces each year.  We spend countless weekends scouring Farmer's Market for varieties of fruit that are new to us, while also loading up on the basic, berries, oranges, pears, peaches, cherries, grapes, and nectarines.

Today is all about the basics. They are your standard fruits.  They can be used in smoothies like this Tropical Sunset Smoothie and my Vanilla Kiwi Smoothie or baked into muffins like Lemon Blueberry Muffins and Strawberry Sour Cream Muffins.  Salads get punched up with fruits such as this California Salad.  Since we eat fruit so much it was no surprise that I have a Simple Fruit Salad that we serve with meals as well.

BETH'S SIMPLE FRUIT SALAD

Simple is in the title because this is a cut and throw in a bowl type of salad.  Nothing fancy, just a lot of good fruits cut into bite sized pieces and placed in a pretty bowl.  No special sauce, no drizzle, or glaze....just good delicious fruit!

Perfect for picnics, potlucks, holidays, and everyday meals or snacks.  Have fun with fruit this year, it good for you!

Enjoy!





Beth's Simple Fruit Salad


2 cups cantaloupe, cubed
2 cups honeydew melon, cubed
2 cups fresh pineapple, cubed
2 cups watermelon, cubed
1/3 cup blueberries
1/4 cup blackberries
2 kiwi, sliced
1 cup strawberries, sliced

Place all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to mix.  Serve chilled.