Watermelon Salad

This watermelon salad recipe was absolutely a hit at the 4th of July BBQ this year. The watermelon ripe and juicy, the bite of the lime and onion kept it light and refreshing, and the basil added wonderful savory overtones to the dish. If you love watermelon, if you love salad… you’re gonna love watermelon salad.

Serves approximately 15

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Almost a whole, large watermelon, chopped into cubes

1 whole red onion

6-8 limes

1 – 8 oz package feta

1/2 clamshell basil leaves (approximately 2/3 C)

1/2 C mint leaves

3 Tbsp safflower oil (or some other very mild oil)

Cayenne pepper to taste

Cracked sea salt

Fresh cracked pepper

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• 24 hours in advance of serving, cut onion into “quarter rings,” but do so in very thin slices. The thinner, the better. Put in a sealable container.
• Squeeze enough fresh lime juice into it that the onion slices are well covered. Put in fridge. When you can (every 8 hours-ish, if possible), shake them up/rotate the onions so that they all get evenly cooked with the acids in the lime juice. This should result in gorgeous, pink onions.
• I suppose if you wanted to get really fancy with it, you could cut the watermelon out of the rind and serve it back in it’s rind…
• Right before serving, cube watermelon into large bowl. Don’t cut them too small, as they “fray” around the edges a little when the watermelon salad is tossed.
• Mince basil and mint into “threads.”
• Add onion.
• Add half the lime juice from the onion/lime concoction.
• Crumble whole package of feta into bowl.
• Add oil.
• Add salt and peppers to taste.
• Gently toss everything together until it’s all well mixed and evenly coated.
• Chill.
• Serve.

On a side note, one person at the party tried the watermelon salad over mixed greens and loved that, too.