Delicious Crunchy Apple Salad With Balsamic Vinaigrette
This bright colorful apple salad with balsamic vinaigrette is what you want to have on your food spread. It’s crispy, juicy and refreshing. With the dressing that tastes a little spicy yet delicious.
Apple salad
This apple salad is a bit different from the ordinary salad. It has a mix of fruits and vegetables, creating a colorful look to the dish. With balsamic vinegar and chili flakes as the main ingredients for the dressing, this salad has a lot of flavor.
Most of the ingredients of this salad recipe use summer produce. So, naturally, summertime is the best time to enjoy this salad as you can get the best quality products.
But there is no restriction on when you can have this apple, melon, and pineapple salad, really.
Because now you can get all sorts of fruits and vegetables pretty much all year long.
This apple salad with balsamic vinaigrette offers crunchy apples, radishes, cucumber, and cantaloupe melon that mingles well with soft pineapple and spicy arugula leaves. The crumbles of feta cheese and chopped cashew nuts add more interesting textures and flavor to this apple salad.
When it comes to the dressing, you get the richly sweet and tangy balsamic flavor, with a little kick from the chili flakes.
Apple In Many Things
Yes, you can enjoy this crunchy fruit in many ways. Not only can you eat it as it is, but you can use it in appetizers like this apple salad, or in drinks like apple and kale smoothie, or in scrumptious desserts such as Mary Berry’s apple cake, apple crumble cake and apple blackberry crumble.
So, it is a no-brainer to keep an apple or two in your fruit basket, making it handy whenever needed.
The Fruits That Go Well With Balsamic Vinegar
Although I use apple, melon, and pineapple for this salad, you can always substitute according to your taste, as long as your choice goes well with balsamic vinaigrette.
There are plenty of choices for us to make a balsamic fruit salad.
As a rule of thumb, I think crunchy fruits such as apples, melons, watermelons, and pears are among them.
And if you want to go for rather soft fruits, I’d say pineapple, peaches, and all berries like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries are good too.
When To Serve The Apple Salad
Like any salad, this apple salad with balsamic vinaigrette goes very well as an appetizer for your food spread.
You can serve it as a starter for happy occasions such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Eid celebrations, festive holiday seasons, Ramadan iftar, summer barbecues, etc.
A Bit Different Balsamic Vinegar Dressing
You only need balsamic vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, dried chili flakes, honey, and salt.
When it comes to vinegar and olive oil, make sure you choose good quality ones. Because some balsamic vinegar tastes very sour without the richness and deep flavor.
I tried quite a few different brands in the past. But for now, I’m happy with this balsamic vinegar from Filippo Berio. I find it delicious when mixed with early-harvest extra-virgin olive oil like this one. At times, I mix the two and have it as a dip for a piece of nice artisan bread.
As for the chili flakes, it’s to give a bit of kick and jazzed-up flavor that makes this balsamic vinegar dressing a little different. You can put more or fewer chilies according to your taste. Add a pinch at a time and add more if you like it.
For the last few years, I’ve been using Himalayan salt because I believe it has natural benefits for us. But you can always use the table salt if you don’t have it.
Top Tips To Prepare Crispy Fruit Salad
- Prepare each ingredient and keep it in a bowl or container until you can serve the salad.
- Make the dressing in a mason jar (I use a used jam jar), and keep it before you’re ready to serve.
- Assemble the salad and drizzle the dressing generously over the salad at the last minute before serving.
Put the balsamic vinegar in a bowl.- Add the olive oil and chili flakes.
- Add honey into the mixture and whisk everything until it is emulsified. Set aside.
More Salad Recipes
Before you go, don’t forget to check out my other salad recipes that you may like:
- Asinan Jakarta: Indonesian crispy salad with spicy peanuts and tamarind.
- Cucumber and tomato salad in a spicy dressing.
- Gado-gado Jakarta recipe.
- Rujak Serut: Indonesian sweet potato slaw with tamarind dressing.
- Acar Timun: the Indonesian cucumber salad.
- Papdi Chaat: potato and chickpea salad.
Thank you for checking out this recipe. I hope you like it and want to try it. When you do, I’d appreciate your sharing your thoughts about the recipe in the comments below.
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Take care and all the best.
Apple, Melon And Pineapple Salad With Balsamic Vinegar
Equipment
- Kitchen knife
- Chopping board
- Mixing bowls.
- Small frying pan
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 5 ounces cantaloupe melon.
- 5 ounces pineapple.
- 4 ounces cucumber.
- 4 ounces radishes.
- 4 ounces granny smith apple see the note.
- 2 ounces feta cheese.
- 2 ounces cashew nuts.
- Two handfuls rocket leaves.
For the dressing:
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil.
- 1 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar.
- ¼ teaspoon dried-red chilli flakes.
- ⅛ teaspoon Himalayan salt see the note.
- ½ teaspoon clear honey.
Instructions
The salad:
- Cut the cantaloupe melon and pineapple into cubes.
- Trim the radish and slice them in equal thickness.
- Peel, core and chop the apple.
- Peel, deseed and cut the cucumber into cubes.
- Pan roast the cashew nuts until they’re slightly brown and crunchy. Let them cool and crush them a little bit.
The dressing:
- In a small bowl, put the balsamic vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, dry chilli flakes, salt, and honey.
- Mix well until all is kind of emulsified.
To assemble:
- Arrange the rocket leaves on a big plate.
- Add the melon, pineapple, apple, radish, apple, and cucumber.
- Sprinkle the cashew nuts all over.
- Crumble and scatter the feta cheese over the fruits and leaves.
- Drizzle the dressing over the salad and mix everything using the salad spoons.
Notes
- You can swap the cashew nuts with any nuts you love. Hazelnuts, Brazil nuts and Pecan nuts are good options too.
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutritional info in this recipe is only estimate using online calculator. You should refer to it as a guide only. Please verify with your own data if you seek an accurate info.
