Fresh Fruit Salad with Celery-Honey Dressing
Submitted by candiesue1951
Fresh fruit salad with pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberries, grapes, and blackberries in a homemade celery-honey dressing. A Southern Living-style summer salad with a blended vinaigrette.
YIELD
16 servingsPREP
30 minCOOK
20 minREADY
2 hrsFive fresh fruits tossed in a honey-mustard vinaigrette spiked with celery seed. This is Southern entertaining done right. Pineapple chunks, cantaloupe balls, green grapes, strawberries, and blackberries in a bowl, chilled and dressed.
The celery-honey dressing is what sets this apart from every other fruit salad. It’s a blender vinaigrette made with sugar, dry mustard, paprika, salt, honey, lemon juice, and vinegar. Vegetable oil gets drizzled in slowly while the blender runs, emulsifying into a thick, creamy dressing. Grated onion and celery seeds get stirred in at the end.
That combination of sweet honey, tangy vinegar, warm mustard, and earthy celery seed creates a dressing that complements fruit without burying it. It’s savory enough to keep the salad from tasting like dessert.
The dressing makes about 1 ¾ cups, way more than you need for one batch of salad. It stores well in the fridge and works on green salads too.
Kitchen Tips
- Chill the fruit thoroughly before tossing with dressing. Warm fruit wilts quickly under a vinaigrette
- Drizzle the oil slowly into the running blender. Adding it too fast breaks the emulsion and you end up with a thin, separated dressing
- Toss the fruit gently. Berries bruise easily, especially blackberries
- Dress the salad just before serving. The acid in the dressing will soften the fruit if it sits too long
Variations
- Swap the blackberries for blueberries or raspberries depending on what’s in season
- Add sliced kiwi or mango for a more tropical mix
- Use the dressing on a spinach salad with sliced strawberries and pecans
Ingredients
Directions
Combine fruit in a large bowl, tossing gently but well.
Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
Serve with Celery-Honey Dressing.
Celery-Honey Dressing: Combine first 7 ingredients in container of electric blender; blend well.
Slowly add oil, continiung to blend until thick; stir in onion and celery seeds.
Cover and store in refrigerator.
Yield: about 1¾ cups.
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