Name: Green Fruit Salad
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: Serves 8
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: ½ honeydew melon, in 2 cm cubes; 4 kiwis, peeled and quartered; 2 cups (300 g) green grapes, halved; 2 green apples, cored and diced; 2 ripe pears, cored and diced; 2 star fruit, sliced, optional; Small handful of mint leaves; Juice and zest of 2 limes; 3 tbsp honey; 1 tsp vanilla extract; Pinch of fine salt

Green Fruit Salad

Six green fruits, a honey lime dressing, and nothing brown. The dressing is what stops the apples turning.

Prep

20 min

Makes

Serves 8

Jump to the recipe

A fruit salad built on one color has one enemy, and it is browning.

Apples, pears and green grapes all contain polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that reacts with oxygen and turns cut surfaces brown within minutes. Lime juice stops it two ways: the ascorbic acid is a reducing agent that reverses the first stage of the reaction, and the low pH slows the enzyme itself. So the dressing is not only flavor — toss the cut fruit in it as you go and the salad stays green for hours.

Cut the fruit to roughly the same size, about two centimeters. A salad with whole grapes and large chunks of melon eats badly; every forkful should be able to hold a bit of everything.

Kiwi last and gently. It is soft, it bruises, and stirred through early it breaks down and clouds the whole bowl.

The same honey and lime dressing works on peach lemonade as a syrup.

Mint, torn not chopped. A knife blackens the cut edges within minutes, which on a salad that is entirely about staying green is the wrong thing to do.

Green fruit salad, printed

Six green fruits, a honey lime dressing, and nothing brown. The dressing is what stops the apples turning.

The fruit and the honey lime dressing

For the salad

½ honeydew melon, in 2 cm cubes
4 kiwis, peeled and quartered
2 cups (300 g) green grapes, halved
2 green apples, cored and diced
2 ripe pears, cored and diced
2 star fruit, sliced, optional
Small handful of mint leaves

For the honey lime dressing

Juice and zest of 2 limes
3 tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of fine salt

Cutting it in the right order

1 Whisk the dressing ingredients together in the bottom of a large bowl before you cut anything.
2 Prepare the apples and pears first and toss them in the dressing immediately — they brown fastest.
3 Add the melon and grapes and turn everything through the dressing.
4 Fold in the kiwi and star fruit last, gently, so they keep their shape.
5 Chill 30 minutes, then tear the mint over just before serving.

Why this healthy fruit salad keeps

Keeps a day refrigerated, which is unusual for a fruit salad and is entirely down to the lime.
A splash of elderflower cordial in the dressing suits it if you have some.