Easy Dragon Fruit Salad with Berries

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This easy dragon fruit salad makes for a refreshing snack or light dessert! The vibrant medley of fresh berries and tropical dragon fruit is sure to be the life of the party at your next picnic or summer gathering!

We’re taking fruit salad to the next level with the addition of sweet dragon fruit! Its crisp flesh is juicy and dotted with little black seeds, providing a wonderful contrast of color and texture to any fruit salad. Our dragon fruit salad features fresh berries and an easy mint and lime dressing for a refreshing summertime twist!

Using Dragon Fruit in Fruit Salad

Also known as pitaya, dragon fruit is a tropical fruit produced by several cactus species native to Central and South America. It’s characterized by its vibrant skin and green “scales.”

Dragon fruit can be found in numerous varieties. White dragon fruit, the variety pictured in our dragon fruit salad photos, has a bright pink peel and white flesh. Red dragon fruit has the same bright pink peel, but the inside ranges from light pink to vibrant pink. And yellow dragon fruit has a yellow exterior with white flesh.

What Does Dragon Fruit Taste Like?

While both sweet and sour varieties of dragon fruit exist, you’ll likely only come across the sweet variety in the States. Its flavor is often described as a cross between kiwi and pear with subtle floral undertones.

The most common variety with pink skin and white flesh has the mildest flavor. Dragon fruit with pink skin and pink or red flesh tends to be slightly sweeter and yellow dragon fruit is the sweetest variety. Any of these varieties will work well in this dragon fruit salad.

Choosing Dragon Fruit

When choosing dragon fruit, you should stay away from anything green, which will be underripe. The skin should be a vibrant pink (or yellow, depending on the variety) and uniformly colored. The dragon fruit should be slightly soft to the touch, but not at all mushy for this dragon fruit salad.

How to Cut Dragon Fruit

Dragon fruit may look intimidating, but it’s surprisingly easy to cut! Start by slicing down the middle lengthwise and then choose one of these methods for your dragon fruit salad:

• Spheres: Use a melon baller to scoop out the flesh into small spheres.
• Slices or cubes: Use your fingers to peel the skin away (this is easier to do when the dragon fruit is quartered). Cut into small slices or cubes.

Dragon fruit will lose some of its crisp texture after cutting, so we recommend preparing it not long before serving.

The Berries

Now let’s get to the rest of the fruit for this dragon fruit salad! For a vibrant presentation and bright taste, I opted for a mixture of fresh berries. They add both sweet and tart flavors for a perfectly refreshing and balanced blend. An added bonus? Blueberries and blackberries don’t need to be cut!

I used a mix of strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Raspberries and cherries would also make great additions or substitutions.

Mix it up!

Here are two of our favorite fruit salads where dragon fruit would make an excellent addition:

• Melon Salad: Use a melon baller to scoop spheres of watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe.
• Tropical Fruit Salad: Think kiwi, pineapple and mango!

Mint + Lime Dressing

With perfectly ripe and juicy fruit, you don’t need much in the way of dressing. For this dragon fruit salad, we go for a simple blend of chopped mint leaves, fresh lime juice and a pinch of sugar.

With so much sweetness from the fruit, do you really need to add sugar? In our humble opinion, yes! It’s only a few teaspoons and helps to extract juice and soften the fruit. The flavors meld together into a well-balanced and cohesive salad!

If you’re not a huge mint person, you can feel free to leave it out or mix in some lime zest for additional flavor.

For more of our favorite fruit-forward dishes, make sure to check out these recipes!

• Simple Strawberry Crumble
• Easy Mango Pico de Gallo
• Lemon Blueberry Cookies
• Simple Strawberry Mousse Cake
• Simple Lemon Posset

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