It’s Summer Salad Time! Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad Recipe

It’s Summer Salad Time! Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad Recipe

So, I’m sitting around dusting off some old cookbooks and foodie mags since the weather is super gorgeous here in Vegas. Trying to find a few new things to make that don’t require the oven being turned on. Summer salad, grill recipes, maybe a nice crock-pot newbie I haven’t tried. It’s going to be a gazillion degrees here soon and  the last thing I want to do is crank on the oven. I found a few really cool things too, you’ll have to keep checking the blog throughout the summer for some of the awesome sauce grill recipes I’m going to make! Like this Apple Bourbon BBQ Ribs we made over on the other blog! Fall off the bone goodness right there! Or, if some kick is what you’re hoping to find… This Indian Dish – Tandoori Chicken with Herbed Greek Yogurt Sauce should be right up your alley! One of the recipes I came across was this:

Watermelon, Feta and Mint Tea Summer Salad.

I know! I scratched my head too! Feta cheese with watermelon? Really? So, I Goggled it. Turns out, it’s totally a *thing*. People have been making it since The Stone Age. Or, there about… Maybe. I thought, fine, let’s give it a go for our little Back Yard BBQ. But, the recipe called for cucumbers. They haven’t started growing yet. I don’t have cucumbers. I did however have a brilliant idea. Well, I thought it was brilliant. I could use cantaloupes! When I bought the watermelon, there were some really nice cantaloupes sitting right there by them, so why not, right? Now, I can try wingin’ this cool take on a new summer salad and maybe make it a new family fav… Well, that’s what I thought. An ya know what? It totally turned out awesome!! SCORE! And, it took maybe a whole 15 minutes tops! However long it takes you to chop up some fruit, without chopping off a finger of course, is how long this takes to make! Super easy, peasy you guys!
So, who’s ready to get their summer salad making skills going with me? Let’s hit it!

Ingredients:

• 1 Seedless Watermelon (cubed)
• 1 Cantaloupe (cubed)
• 3 oz Feta Cheese (crumbled)
• 1/2 TSP Kosher Salt
• 1 Bag Peppermint Tea (we used Bigelow, you should too!)
• 1 Cup Water
• 2 TBS Honey (next time, I will prob go with raw, but Ethan loves that bear, so…)
• 1 1/2 TBS Fresh Mint (chopped *I totally did NOT have this, I used flakes but you should go with fresh!)

Directions:

First start by making the tea. In a small pan, bring water to a boil and add tea bag. Remove from heat and allow to steep 5 minutes. Stir in honey and cool completely. You don’t want to pour hot tea on top of cold fruit. Obviously. While the tea is cooling off to the side, grab yourself a huge bowl. Start chopping up that watermelon and cantaloupe! Don’t cut yourself, that’s never fun. Once the tea and honey have completely cooled, pour over watermelon and cantaloupe in your large mixing bowl. Cover and marinate in ‘fridge for at least an hour. As your serving, sprinkle with feta cheese, salt and mint. DONE!

This turned out to be a really light, refreshing summer salad that I am positive we will be making quite a bit! There were no funny faces that I expected to see when the feta was on top of the watermelon or anything! The salty feta cheese and mint combo just added a burst of… WOW factor. Not a typical fruit summer salad at all! In fact, the next day, we took the juice that had started to gather in the bowl and drank it right up over ice! Also, we tossed in a bag of organic salad and made a whole new kind of summer salad out of that. It needed no dressing either as there was plenty of flavor from the fruit and tea! Try it! Next time around, I think I’m also going to add my homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes! Have you ever made them?

It made our little Back Yard BBQ perfect! And, because we were on the ‘light and full of flavor‘ kick for the evening, we made up a batch of that amazing Strawberry Fudge that everyone loved so much! Perfect ending if I do say so myself!

What’s your favorite summer salad recipe? The fruit kind or the actual salad kind? Send me along some new recipes to try out! Share your links if you have them in the comments section too!! I really need to keep my oven off!