Ricotta Melon Salad; DEW What?

Honey-Do what? Definitely DEW this easy ricotta salad.

Ricotta Melon Salad is an easy, mellow fruit salad that is dressed right on the serving platter. It’s pretty enough for company, but you’ll want to put this into rotation all the time!

I have a confession. My favorite salads are also the simplest. When I make a salad at home, I like to have no more than 5 ingredients mixed together before the dressing. For Ricotta Melon Salad, we’re drizzling the dressing right on top of the salad. I always like the addition of a little fruit and a few nuts to round out a salad too. Plus, the ricotta cheese is a cheap, smooth alternative to other cheeses, and it’s not too assertive. It doesn’t take away from the honeydew melon – it enhances it.

Not overpowering anything is good.

This is a free-form salad that I like to serve on a fabulous serving platter (affiliate links follow), but a wooden salad bowl would also be beautiful.

We used store bought ricotta cheese, but it is apparently pretty easily made. Mel’s Kitchen Cafe shows how – and you can do it in under an hour. I’m definitely going to give it a try soon. This time, I strained (drained?) the store bought stuff to make it a little firmer for the salad. I put a couple layers of paper towel in a kitchen strainer. You can use coffee filters instead – just stagger them a bit. Then spoon in the ricotta. Spooning it in keeps some of the liquid in the jar.

Fold in the paper towels and cover the cheese. Then weigh it down with something. (I used a little stoneware bowl that’s heavier than it looks.)

Put it over a bowl to catch any liquid and pop it in the fridge for an hour or so to drain. You can skip this part, but the cheese may be a little runny if you do.

Remove from the paper towels right before adding to the Ricotta Melon Salad.

Meanwhile, put a layer of baby arugula on your platter and toss on the cut honeydew melon. You can absolutely use your melon baller if you haven’t had it out of the drawer for a while. I wasn’t in the mood for balls, so I used my trusty knife. Toss on some coarsely chopped walnuts too.

Pinch the ricotta and place it around the melon. Then drizzle with the olive oil, honey and some lime juice. I used my wooden reamer to get out every last drop.

Ricotta Melon Salad

Course: Salad

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Ricotta Draining Time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings: 6 servings

Ricotta Melon Salad is a fresh take on a fruit salad recipe with sweet honeydew melon and mellow ricotta cheese. Dress this on the serving platter for a simply sweet salad.

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Ingredients

Salad Ingredients

• 2 ounces Ricotta Cheese, strained (see recipe)
• 1/4 Honeydew melon, cut in 1" pieces
• 4 ounces Baby Arugula, washed
• 2 ounces Walnuts, coarsely chopped

Dressing

• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 tsp Honey
• 1/2 Lime (juice only)
• Kosher Salt
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper

Instructions

• Prep ricotta cheese by spooning it into a strainer lined with paper towels or coffee filters. Cover cheese and weigh down with a heavy bowl or can. Place strainer on bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour.
• Layer arugula, melon and walnuts on serving platter.
• Remove ricotta from paper towels and pinch off pieces to place on salad.
• Drizzle olive oil, honey and lime juice over entire salad. Sprinkle with kosher salt and ground pepper. Serve immediately.

You’ve gotta Dew this one!