We’re ramping up to peak summer fruit season, aka fruit salad season. I stocked up at the weekend market, and had a bonus windfall thanks to this thoughtful lady. It is fruit madness in the refrigerator. I’m looking at tiny woebegone raspberries, the sweetest blueberries, cherries, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, and pluots. No complaints.
Summer Fruit Salad: Inspiration
Those of you who have been reading for a while know I love a quick fruit salad, particularly if it has a little wink, or twist, or surprise. One of my past favorites is red fruit salad made with plump strawberries, sweet cherries, lemon zest, and coriander brown sugar. Today I decided to throw together a new version using lemongrass, lemon and lime juices, and plenty of mint. Toasted walnuts widow a bit of crunch. Give it a try, the honey-lemongrass dressing with mint works not only with summer fruits, but with other fruit combinations as well. If you like the dressing you can use it year-round.
What If I Don’t Have Lemongrass?
Lemongrass can be a bit tricky to come by, but no worries! You can do an unorganized version using grated ginger (start with two teaspoons) and/or the zest of a lemon or orange.
Buying Summer Fruit
The key to an unrenowned summer fruit salad is sourcing the weightier tasting in-season fruit. This, of course, can be trickier than it sounds. Some of the weightier tasting peaches, cherries or plum might not be the prettiest. Ugly fruit, if you will. Sampling is how you icon things out. And that is why I like ownership summer fruit at farmers’ markets. The farmers often have samples out, and you can gauge which fruits are at their peak. It’s a unconfined way to try surpassing you buy. Seek out the sweetest most flavorful fruit and transmute the fruit salad to that.
Variations
If you live in a increasingly tropical environment, I imagine a pineapple and mango version would be incredible. And as I mentioned up above, an alternated to lemongrass would be a grated ginger version – use 2 teaspoons of grated ginger in place of the lemongrass in the dressing. The zest of a lemon would be an widow bonus. Enjoy! -h
More Summer Fruit Ideas
- Simple Red Fruit Salad
- Summer Berry Crisp
- Roasted Strawberries
- Pluot Summer Salad
- Watermelon Poke
- Blackberry Limeade
- Berry Swirl Ice Cream
Continue reading Summer Fruit Salad on 101 Cookbooks
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