Fruit salads don't have to be sweet

The first time I tried a watermelon and feta salad, I was gobsmacked. The porous, sweet bite of melon, the crumbly salinity of feta, the flaky salt crystals, the mint, the balsamic—it was revelatory.

Chef Ariane Duarte, a “Top Chef” season five alum and accomplished New Jersey restaurateur, had a recipe for her winning watermelon-and-feta salad in one of the early “Top” Chef cookbooks. I remember making it excessively one summer.

For some, though, “fruit salad” still conjures images of syrup-slicked fruit orbs — maybe even veering into ambrosia territory.

But why? Why can’t a fruit salad be sturdy, savory, even a little edgy?

I want juicy nectarines and ripe peaches. Buttery hazelnuts and salty peanuts. Creamy burrata and nutty gouda. Taut apricots and briny olives. Tart cherries that pop when bitten, rich fontina, crunchy cashews. The cheese alone can shape the whole experience: the richness of brie, the bite of gorgonzola, the grassiness of goat.

Give me tart vinegars and grassy, unctuous oils — infused with almonds, pistachios and lots of fresh, bright herbs. Give me citrus galore: preserved lemon, blood orange, clementine. Maybe even a pinch of spice.

And above all, salt. The flakier, the better.

Now that is a fruit salad.

It’s time to retire the idea that fruit salad is just a sticky-sweet breakfast afterthought. Fruit deserves our respect—it can be layered, bracing, nuanced.

That interplay of sweet, salty, sharp, and soft is what makes a savory fruit salad sing. Take the classic Italian combo of melon and cured meat: ripe slices paired with braseola or prosciutto. I don’t eat meat anymore, but I still remember the thrill of that contrast—especially when the melon was ice-cold and the meat just sun-warmed.

Alison Roman’s “Dining In” offers a bounty of fruit-forward salads, no frilly greens in sight: persimmons and pears with blue cheese and spicy pecans; apple and endive with parsley and salted almonds; burrata with tangerines and shallots; and my favorite (of course): fennel and grapefruit with honey and mint.

I love all stone fruit, but peaches undo me. So when I found the “Peach” edition of the Short Stack mini-cookbook series, written by Beth Lipton, I was delighted to discover two recipes that treat peaches like tomatoes: one, a pasta salad with cubed peaches in place of cherry tomatoes; the other, a caprese with peach slices subbed for beefsteaks. I made both on loop for months.

Abra Berens’s “Pulp” is another favorite fruit tome. She outlines six (!) methods for preparing nearly every fruit: raw, roasted, poached, stewed, baked, preserved. Her salads run the gamut—apple with pecorino, lentils and radicchio; blueberry with oat groats, chicories and buttermilk; raw cabbage with ground cherries, cilantro, pepitas and lime.

It’s a good rule in general: add a slick of oil and a hit of salt, and almost anything tilts savory. Try it—you’ll see what I mean.

And if raw fruit’s not your thing? That’s fine, too. Stew some cherries, spoon them over goat cheese, and top with toasted, buttered walnuts. Outside the “salad” box? Maybe. But too good to nitpick.

So here’s your assignment: take stock of whatever fruit you’ve got on hand. Then build the most fabulous, flavor-packed fruit salad you can dream up.

Go forth. Your (savory) summer fruit salad era awaits.