Watermelon and tomatoes sounded like an odd pairing when I found this salad from Steamy Kitchen through Pinterest. I tried it for Memorial Day and liked the combination. The change I’d make next time is buying a seedless melon: picking out all those seeds was the slow part.
Ingredients
Red wine vinaigrette
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salad
- 1 small cucumber, peeled
- ½ small red onion
- 3 heirloom tomatoes, about 12 ounces total, cut into bite-size chunks
- 3 ½ cups peeled, seeded, bite-size watermelon chunks
- 1 red bell pepper, cut into bite-size chunks
- 7 ounces French feta cheese, cut into ½-inch cubes
- 1 cup fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
Mix and serve chilled
For the vinaigrette, whisk the vinegar, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl, then gradually whisk in the olive oil. Set it aside while you prepare the salad.
Cut the cucumber and onion into pieces for the salad. Combine them with the tomatoes, watermelon, bell pepper, feta, and mint. Toss with the dressing and serve chilled.
I handled the dressing differently for my batch: I drizzled the ingredients directly over the salad and mixed everything together. I used very little red wine vinegar because the watermelon and tomatoes supplied plenty of juice. The quantities above are the full vinaigrette from the recipe, rather than the smaller, unmeasured amount I used.
For a warm watermelon side dish, we also tried grilled watermelon with sea salt and olive oil.
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