Olive Honeydew Winter Summer Salad
Olive Honeydew Winter Summer Salad is a perfectly balanced Mediterranean salad featuring honeydew, fennel, orange, olives and parsley for winter or summer.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 ½-2 pounds honeydew melon*
- 1 small-medium fennel bulb
- chopped fennel fronds for garnish optional
- ¼ cup chopped parsley leaves
- ¼ cup olives I like oil-cured black olives and bright green Castelvetrano olives
- grated orange zest from one whole orange
- 1 tablespoon+ fresh orange juice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil plus more for drizzling
- sea salt
- freshly ground pepper
Instructions
- Cut the melon in half and remove the seeds. Cut away the rind. Cut into very thin slices using a mandoline or by hand. Thin is important to make this feel like a salad ingredient as opposed to large chunks of fruit. Make sure the pieces are bite-sized.
- To prepare the fennel, remove and reserve the stems and fronds.
- Cut the fennel in half and slice very thin with a mandoline.
- Chop parsley leaves.
- Zest the orange.
- Whisk orange juice and 2 tablespoons oil in a large salad bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add melon, shaved fennel, olives, parsley, and orange zest to vinaigrette and toss to coat. Top salad with fennel fronds, drizzle with more oil, and season with salt and pepper. Or, for a fancier presentation, I toss the fennel in the dressing, then arrange on a platter, then toss the melon in the remaining dressing, and arrange on top of the fennel.
- Finally, I garnish with the olives, parsley and zest.
But to serve, I mix it all together.
Notes
*Fake it 'til you make it: the honeydew should be really sweet. Sometimes it’s not. I have a cheat. Toss the slices in a tablespoon or so of granulated sugar and let sit for at least 20 minutes. Then proceed to make the salad. It’s amazing what a difference this can have in making a winter melon into a summer melon.
Adapted from Bon Appetit