Watermelon Feta Salad

Mediterranean Watermelon Salad with Feta, Mint and Lemon-Sumac dressing. This perfect party salad is easy to put together, and is bursting with tasty refreshing, sweet and sour flavors of watermelon, feta, mint and a Lemon Sumac dressing. Pure bonus is pretty colors of red, white and green making a great presentation. 

Overall, this Watermelon Salad recipe is special for two reasons:

1. The sweet and sour flavor.
2. Bold and delicious Mediterranean Watermelon Salad Dressing. Seriously, dressing is so good! It goes great with any sweet fruit salad! 

Oh, I'm also sharing tested and proven trick to save Watermelon Salad from getting soggy sitting in it's own juice. (read on to know more)

MEDITERRANEAN WATERMELON SALAD

Allow me to introduce you to delicious combination of sweet watermelon, with lemon and salty feta cheese. Today, this combination inspired me to give you this Mediterranean Watermelon Salad recipe. I flavor the Watermelon Salad dressing with citrus-y sumac and earthy oregano. Really, these two ingredients take already fab Watermelon Salad to fabulous! Plus the addition of Mediterranean-favorite feta cheese and olives bring the quintessential salty flavor in this sweet fruit salad.

A good tasty salad starts with two important component: 1) Fresh and good quality ingredients. 2) A bold Salad Dressing. 

Salad such as this Fruit Salad needs only a few ingredients.

1. Watermelon
2. Feta
3. Mint
4. Olives
5. Lemon-y Dressing

To give Lemon Dressing extra punch of flavor, I use Mediterranean-favorite citrus-y Sumac, Oregano with Lemon Juice, Olive Oil, Salt and chili flakes.

These few ingredients make a delicious pack-a-punch bold dressing which goes very good with sweet watermelon, and salty feta cheese.

To make the salad, I simply dice the watermelon fruit. (I use seedless watermelon for this salad as it is easy to just cut and dice. No need to worry about seeds.) Dice the feta and chop the olives.

To make the Watermelon Salad dressing, I mix together lemon juice, sumac, olive oil, chili flakes and oregano until emulsified. 

That's it! Mix dressing with watermelon and feta. Add chopped olives and julienne mint. Refreshing Summer Fruit Salad is ready to devour!

MINT OR BASIL?

If you prefer, you can also replace mint with fresh basil. The sharp flavor of sweet or even Thai basil goes good with Watermelon. On a side-note, even if you don't have mint or basil, this Watermelon Salad recipe will still work. Just don't skip the Lemon Sumac dressing.

MAKE-AHEAD WATERMELON SALAD?

Any Watermelon Salad is best when assembled just before serving. Chilled for 30 minutes. Since watermelon is so full of water. It tends to loose water when it sits longer - made-ahead or in a party/potluck salad bowl. If you need to make-ahead watermelon salad, try the following to avoid serving a soggy Watermelon Salad.

All watermelon salad will loose water when sit longer after cut and mixed with dressing. After 30 minutes you will find salad sitting in pool of water. Don't worry. There is an easy trick to avoid this.

1. Take a piece of aluminum foil slightly larger than the size of salad bowl.
2. Place it on bowl and make tiny holes with sharp pairing knife. Place a small bowl (1/8 of size of salad bowl) upside down at the bottom of salad bowl. Fill sides lightly with layer of ice cubes. Gently place the perforated aluminum foil on the top.
3. Now, add the watermelon salad on top. Any water steeping from melon salad with go down the aluminum foil perforation into the ice. Watermelon will never be soggy. Layer of ice will also keep it chilled.

Friends, this season, bring home fresh Watermelon! Then try this effortless, Watermelon and Feta Salad. It is perfect on the side of Grilled Chicken Souvlaki dinner. Also makes very refreshing bright salad to bring to Party Potlucks. (And with my tested trick, Watermelon Salad will never be soggy again!)

Wish you all a bright and colorful day just like this Watermelon Salad! -Savita