Winter Fruit Salad
Irresistibly delicious, fresh and vibrant Winter Fruit Salad with Honey Lime Poppy Seed Vinaigrette is simple to whip together but can’t stop eating delicious! It makes the perfect Thanksgiving or Christmas side!
Servings 6 -8 servings
Ingredients
Fruit Salad
- 2 sweet apples, chopped like Honeycrisp or Fuji
- 2 pears, chopped
- 3 kiwis peeled, sliced and quartered
- 2 bananas, sliced
- 1 15 oz. can mandarin oranges in WATER, drained OR 3 mandarin oranges/peeled, separated
- pomegranate arils from 1 pomegranate
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
Honey Lime Poppy Seed Vinaigrette
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
Instructions
- Add all of the salad ingredients to a large bowl.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together all of the Vinaigrette ingredients.
- Pour Vinaigrette over dressing and gently toss to coat. Serve immediately.
Notes
- apples and pears: You don’t need to worry about your apples and pears turning brown within the first few hours because the Honey Lime Vinaigrette contains lime in it which will keep them from browning.
- bananas: Slice your bananas at least 1/2 inch thick so they hold their shape in the Winter Fruit Salad. The bananas will keep for a few hours without turning brown if they are immediately tossed in a little of the dressing which contains lime juice. You can also slice bananas into a bowl containing pineapple juice or orange juice. I don’t recommend lime (separate from the dressing) or lemon juice is it adds additional tartness). Gently stir the bananas to coat all sides then remove them with a slotted spoon and add to the salad just before serving.
- kiwis: take care your kiwis are ripe or else they will taste bitter. It is better to omit bitter kiwis than include them.
- pomegranate arils: You can purchase a whole pomegranate and remove the seeds yourself or you can purchase ready-to-eat seeds for convenience.
- mandarin oranges: I recommend fresh mandarin oranges as opposed to canned because canned oranges easily fall apart. If you want to use canned oranges, then take care to refrigerate the can first so the oranges are nice and chilled. For fresh Mandarin oranges, look for clementines because they are seedless and super easy to peel
- chill your fruit. Place your fruit– chopped or whole – in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Chilled fruit is everything in a fruit salad. You don’t need to chop your fruit 2 hours in advance, but at least place your whole fruit in the refrigerator because no one likes luke-warm fruit salad!
- use ripe, but not too ripe fruit. We want fruit but don't want it too ripe or it will get mush and fall apart - especially the bananas and kiwis.
- mix up fruit. Feel free tot mix up the fruit and omit/add whatever works for you!
- customize dressing. Depending on how your sweet/ripe your fruit is you may want more or less honey or lime in your dressing.
- scale up or down. This Winter Fruit Salad makes enough to feed a family of fruit lovers or for a Thanksgiving side, but is also easy to scale down. You'll want to divide the ingredients in half if you expect leftovers because it doesn't keep well, particularly the bananas.
- serve within 2 hours. I think this Winter Fruit Salad is best within 2 hours but will still taste delicious if served later than that.
- storing. I would remove the bananas from any leftover fruit salad before storing in the refrigerator. The remaining fruit will taste delicious the next day but the pears and apples will turn slightly brown sound the edges.
- leftovers. Whenever I can’t use fruit in time, I freeze it later for smoothies. For this Winter Fruit Salad, divide any leftovers into individual sandwich bags, seal and freeze for later. Combine with vanilla yogurt, ice/or frozen banana, orange juice and sugar to taste.