Fruit Salad – A Summer Staple

I’m not going to lie to you – it’s been a week. I have managed to make dinner every night, but something has gone amuck each evening and dinner has ended up very late. This is not my favorite scenario, but some weeks are like that.

The one bright food spot in the week for me was a visit to our local fruit stand. It was one of those perfect golden moments when the last of the strawberries were in, along with the first watermelons and cantaloupes, and some elusive early season peaches – all the makings for a beautiful fruit salad.

So, that’s just what I did. I made a nice big fruit salad which complements nearly every meal and can be eaten any time of the day. There are many ways to make a fruit salad and none of them are wrong. Mine is extremely simple and can use anything you have on hand.

I like to start by cutting up the big melons. I usually cut them in slices, then cube them up. The watermelon is the most unwieldy and messy, but always worth it, providing you picked a good one to start. Recently, someone posted a handy guide to picking a good watermelon. I cannot claim credit for it but wanted to share it with you here for future melon selection.

I used this guide to pick my melon and I think I did pretty well. When I cut it open, the color was the perfect watermelon color – bright, juicy red. It could have been a little sweeter, but it worked very well for fruit salad.

Remove any seeds your watermelon may have and place the cubes into the bottom of a large bowl. After the melons, I added some fresh cubed pineapple. After you have added your larger, firmer fruits, you can add softer fruits like peeled and diced peaches and strawberries.

If you have other fruits you like to add, like mango, kiwi, or sweet cherries, feel free to add those, too. I had some gorgeous blueberries.

Some people add fancy sweet dressings to their fruit salads, but I like to let the fruit flavors shine through. I squeeze a lime over the bowl, then sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top, then gently toss all of the fruit together. The sugar adds just a touch of sweetness and the lime juice adds just the right amount of zing. I know it’s not complicated or fancy, but it is delicious.

Now the only piece of controversy in fruit salad is whether or not to add bananas. They add a bit of tropical creaminess, but definitely should not be mixed into the whole bowl. We solve this problem by slicing bananas right on top of individual servings. That way, you aren’t stuck with mushy, brown bananas in your bowl.

This may seem like a cop out of a blog, but sometimes it’s nice to be reminded of the simple pleasures of summer, like fresh fruit salad.