Summer Fruit Salad
A summer fruit salad featuring berries, peaches and pluots. It is drizzled with a citrusy lemongrass and honey dressing, topped with toasted walnuts, and lots of mint.
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 black 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 added 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 alternate version using grated ginger (start with two teaspoons) and/or the zest of a lemon or orange.
Buying Summer Fruit
The key to an exceptional summer fruit salad is sourcing the best tasting in-season fruit. This, of course, can be trickier than it sounds. Some of the best tasting peaches, cherries or plum might not be the prettiest. Ugly fruit, if you will. Sampling is how you figure things out. And that is why I like buying summer fruit at farmers’ markets. The farmers often have samples out, and you can gauge which fruits are at their peak. It’s a great way to try before you buy. Seek out the sweetest most flavorful fruit and adapt the fruit salad to that.
Variations
If you live in a more 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 added 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
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Fruit Salad with Thai Herbs
HS: I used a medley of nectarines, pluots, cherries, blackberries, loganberries, and peaches. Use whatever ripe and delicious fruit you have on hand.
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon and/or lime juice
- 2 tablespoons honey
- a pinch of salt
- the tender interior of a stalk of lemongrass, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 5 - 6 cups of seasonal fruit, sliced
- 20 mint leaves, chiffonade
- to serve: any or all of the following, toasted coconut, dollops of creme fraiche or yogurt, toasted walnuts
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Whisk together the citrus juice, honey, salt, lemongrass, and vanilla. Set aside.
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Arrange the fruit in a large bowl or on a platter, and drizzle with about half of the dressing. Taste, and decide if you'd like to add more dressing. Then add the coconut, nuts, and creme fraiche, and serve.
Related Recipes
Simple Red Fruit Salad
Red fruit salad, arguably better than old-school fruit salad. Made with plump strawberries, sweet cherries, lemon zest, and coriander brown sugar. Five ingredients. So good.
Summer Berry Crisp
A favorite summer berry crisp - ripe berries cook into a thick, jammy, wine-spiked fruit sludge beneath a crispy, oat-flecked top.
Roasted Strawberries
A delicious argument for roasting strawberries - juices from the roasting berries combine with maple syrup, port adds a surprise hint of booziness, and the balsamic delivers a dark bass note.
Pluot Summer Salad
A pluot-centric fruit salad with toasted ginger, garlic, and shallots. It is drizzled with a simple lime soy sauce dressing, and is generously flecked with herbs - in this case, mint, basil, and cilantro.
Blackberry Limeade
This blackberry limeade is a stunning jeweled-toned refresher, perfect for summer, from the cookbook Screen Doors and Sweet Tea by Martha Hall Foose.
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Comments
Refreshing sweetness in every bite! This is the nice one!
Thanks Fred!
Beautuful! Gives me an idea for a mellon, strawberry, and tomato sweet and savory salad! Thanks! Haley
All the colors and textures of this salad just scream SUMMER! Love the lemongrass dressing idea.
Ooh such a gorgeous salad, and I can't wait to try it with lemongrass that's sure to be so good!! I can't wait till Summer's bounty arrives here, I'm drooling over all this wonderful fruit and waiting patiently (?) xx
Where we live there are several places where we can pickup fruit and vegetables that are not quite "past prime"; but are also not considered worthy of grocery store space. Today we brought home blackberries, strawberries, peaches, apricots, cherries, lemon-grass and lots of other great produce. We cut them up and have them in a container in the refrigerator. I think splurging on a little creme fraiche might be in order to make what you have! Beautiful!
this looks bomb! i remember reading the red fruit salad post and i'd always been meaning to try it but i'm a bit torn since this look so nice too. ugh.. guess i'll have to try both! so upset! ;)
Great looking fruit salad! I always love to eat fruits without any dressing but this s such a perfect recipe to make or simple and tasty dressing with colorful fruits:-)
We are swimming in local fruit, too! I think it's time for Camille's first fruit salad! :)
Hello Heidi, Love a quick recipe. But, never had it crossed my mind that it's possible to use herbs in fruit salad. Citrus is my favorite flavor. Hence, when I come across a recipe with lemon, lime or orange, I know I have to try it. Lemongrass is the surprise here. Thank you. Cheers! Renee
ooh wow this looks delicious. we are just entering strawberry season here in maine, so i'll file this away for a few weeks until we catch up. thanks heidi!
Where did you get that gorgeous, and perfect sized bowl?! HS: Thanks Lindsay! It's one of Colleen Hennessey's bowls. :)
Unfortunately, lemongrass is nigh impossible to get where I live. Do you have any suggestions for substitution? (I know, it won't be the same, but I'm sort of stuck....)
HS: Hi Susan - you could do a version with grated ginger....and/or with lots of zest....
I never think of adding dressing to a fruit salad--I think of fruit being pretty much perfect au naturel. This sounds intriguing.
Heidi I love the sound of this fruit salad! I always love it when I come across fruit salads with a twist (because it is so rare!). I grew up with orange blossom water scented fruit salad (a remnant from when my parents lived in Morocco before my birth) and always loved the unique floral flavour it adds to fruit salads. And then, we recently changed caterer at work and the new guy does a tropical fruit salad (think watermelon, dragon fruit, passion fruit, grape fruit etc) that is Jasmine scented! The fruit salad was so good, people at work could not stop talking about it! So I have just bought some more Jasmine tea to try and recreate this at home. And after that, I might have to try your red fruit salad with coriander or this lemon grass version!
OOOH yes. i have a bunch of mint that i have no idea what to do with, and i've already used it for my go-to's (vietnamese spring rolls, mint water, mint pesto, etc)