winter fruit salad
Are fruit salads one of these things that I assume everyone in the world makes, but really, it is just my family? It could be, but I still think they’re essential. There is nothing better to break up a brunch of cheesy baked eggs and breakfast bread puddings, and dessert courses that seem to be a chain of pies, gooey brownies and cakes than than a big bowl of fruit. Of course, a bowl of whole fruit rarely works as anything but a centerpiece, and this is where the salad part comes in.
In the summer, it is a cinch–berries are flawless and everywhere, not to mention mangoes and cantaloupes and watermelon. But unless you want to buy imperfect, frighteningly overpriced berries with thousands of food miles on their backs, fall and winter can make something as simple as chopped fruit kind of dull.
I adapted this one–which I brought to the loveliest brunch yesterday, along with those scones–from a lovely Amanda Hesser article now almost seven years old where she maps out a Christmas brunch that can be entirely prepared the day before, as all brunch foods should be, in my opinion. My best friend’s mother has made the original version of the fruit salad every December 25th, but at home, I like to punch it up a bit, adding pomegranate seeds, lemon juice and dialing back the sugar. Nevertheless, it remains a mellow, almost soothing bowl of fruit, a perfect complement to all of those cold winter mornings ahead.
Two years ago: Jacked-Up Banana Bread
Winter Fruit Salad
3/4 cup sugar
3 star anise
1/2 of plump vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
8 dried Turkish apricots, cut in half
4 dried figs, quartered
4 2-inch long pieces lemon zest (peeled with a vegetable peeler) from a Meyer lemon if you can find one
Juice of the zest lemon
3 firm Bosc pears
1 firm tart apple
Seeds from half a pomegranate
1. Fill a medium saucepan with 4 cups water. Add the sugar, star anise, vanilla bean and lemon zest. Bring to a boil, and cook until all the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool for just a few minutes (it should still be hot) and then stir in the dried figs and apricots. Let it cool completely.
2. Meanwhile, peel and core pears and apple. Slice thinly lengthwise and place in a large bowl, and toss with the lemon juice.
3. Once the syrup with dried fruit has cooled, pour it over the apples and pears. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill it overnight in the refrigerator.
4. The next morning, using a slotted spoon, ladle the fruit into a serving bowl, sprinkle with the pomegranate seeds and serve. Remove the vanilla beans (you can rinse and save what is left of them for another use) and lemon peels if you wish, or leave them in for decoration.
Do ahead Syrup can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for a day or two. Hot syrup can be poured over the dried fruit and kept in the fridge for a day or so. Prepared salad keeps in the fridge for a day or two, but is best fresh.
Beautiful. And another way to use my very first pomegranate.
I love NaBloPoMo!!! It’s so fun to get a new recipe every day. This one looks fantastic, I think I’ll try it out this Christmas!
this salad looks absolutely beautiful! I must try this recipe during the holidays.
Your photography is just great. And the salad looks delicious! We’ve been eating pears every day (seasonal is our thing); I’ll give this a try.
Deb, fruit salad is one of those things that I always INTEND to make, but rarely do. Particularly in the winter.
This, though, is inspirational. I may just have to see what I can find in season in CO and give this a whirl. Something tells me I will have to cheat and look beyond the borders of this fine state, unless my fruit salad is going to be all apples…and frozen peaches from this summer!
That certainly makes for a stunning salad. I just made a recipe with star anise for the first time. And I’m feeling like quite the foodie. Even though I am too half assed to be a true foodie.
Angie (from over at http://www.HalfAssedKitchen.com)
Count me (and my family) among the fruit salad makers and eaters. Yours looks lovely; I plan to serve it when my family comes to spend Thanksgiving with me in Brooklyn. Thanks for yet another yummy recipe!!
This sounds perfectly delicious but I would have to serve it at room temp. to truly enjoy it in the winter.
Why do you add sugar to a fruit salad? All of those fruits are quite sweet on their own and I imagine even better together! The pom seeds look lovely.
Wow..this salad sounds really, really good. I love fruit with a meal. I always serve, at least, one or two types cut up and put in individual fruit bowls. At the very least, I serve applesauce, and there’s nothing easier to make while the rest of the meal is cooking. We love dried fruits too, but they don’t make it in as often, they’re more snack foods for us. I grew up with fruit served at meals..and so I have kept the habit for my family. It’s a very healthy habit to get into.
Sounds delicious. I love the simplicity and the fact that there’s no dubious dairy or emulsified egg products in it:-)
No matter what the season, at holiday celebrations Italians always slip a fresh fruit course in between dinner and dessert. Your fruit salad looks like a wonderful way to do it! I really love this!
deb, a request for those of us in the southern hemisphere moving into summer… your site becomes frustrating! Hahahahah I’m over soup and pies! I’m ready to move into summer food, although cakes and cookies will never go out of season! Can you start tagging your recepies with the season that most fits them? That way as we enter into spring here, we can indulge looking at your autumn feasts but also do a search on spring and find inspiring things to cook right now… just a thought….
I like that pear picture with the single apple. In fact- I think you are a genius.
I am adding that to my Christmas brunch spread.
I often make this in winter:
2 red grapefruits
4 oranges (all peeled whole, de-pithed and cut into rounds)
dried cranberries
Combine in small saucepan: 1 T sugar or honey, juice of half a lime, a little cardamon, lime zest, 1 T water, heat until melted, toss salad gently.
I make it the night before and garnish with mint leaves. So much vitamin C!
My family almost always had fruit salad at dinner, it’s my mother’s favorite thing. Virtually every evening my mother will say “I’m going to make a nice fruit salad!” and my father responds with “what a novel concept!”, then she pouts just the tiniest bit.
What you call “winter fruit salads we called “fruit compotes”. I think they’re popular in Jewish/Russian/Eastern Europian homes? Love them. I used almost any fruit. Try Mandiran oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, rasins, prunes, drid apricots. Oh dear, my mouth is watering. Also, I remember using pickled fruit to decorate my Thanksgiving turkey. Pickled beets, pickled peaches, pickled anything. Shocked the Irish in-laws.
My mother also used to make fruit salad at least 3 times a week, as a dessert. We just put any fruit in it, pears, tangerines and walnuts in automn, melon and strawberries in the summer, etc… It’s a great way to make everyone eat the 5 recommanded fruits/vegetables a day. And we don’t add any sugar, just letting the fruits marinate in their juices is enough.
This is our typical saturday lunch dessert. Well, except for this Saturday, when I baked the Salted butter caramel chocolate cake again (I finally posted the recipe, found it after your post on Paris). Everyone raved about it. I hope you’ll try it and like it too!
I never thought of a winter fruit salad. What a great idea. Thanks.
What a great way to liven up a fruit salad. And I love the texture combo of the dried and fresh fruit.
Looks like a salad filled with gems! Gorgeous.
This salad looks awesome! Any tips for cutting a pomegranate?
I love the addition of the pomegranate seeds - they’re not only pretty and so fresh and delicious, too.
Apparently the next ’superfruit’ will be yumberry.I have no idea what a yumberry looks like but when I tried the juice, it had a similar tannin rich flavour to pomegranates. You can read about it here if you like: http://danamccauley.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/super-foods-on-the-menu/
LOVE the addition of pomegranate seeds. And thanks for all the make-ahead steps. I just realized last night that Thanksgiving is next week. Umm, wha?! I so am not ready. Thank goodness for a certain persons recipe archive that will save the day. SCORE!
Looks great - I think it would be a great addition to a Thanksgiving table…. for those unwilling to take the plunge and have some fattening pie or cake.
this is perfect for those of us trying to watch our waistlines through the holidays (as difficult as it may be)!
Sounds lovely. My family usually start Holiday dinner with fruit salad, I think this will be fantastic for Xmas. Thanks, Deb!
This is beautiful. Coming from a Korean-American background, we always had fresh fruit either at the end of a meal or in the middle of the table during the meal. Starting with a fruit salad like this sounds like a great tradition!
It might help stave off some calories from all of the recipes I plan (hope) to make from the December issue of Bon Appetit!!
BTW, those Anchor Hocking bowls are in my Amazon cart, just waiting for me to hit ’send’!!
Does the syrup keep the pears/apple from turning brown overnight?
Long-time reader, first-time poster.
I love that you love fruit salads. Growing up, my mother ALWAYS made “fruit cups” for meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever). Fruit cups in our house were any fruit that we had on hand, cut up and put in those Pyrex custard cups with a little citrus juice and/or sugar added. When I started off on my own, I still made fruit cups, which apparently perplexed my future husband (he couldn’t figure out how it fit with the rest of the meal) until he came to dinner at my parents’ house where my mom served a fruit cup with dinner. Now he loves them.
I love this combination in your post, which means a stop at the store for frest vanilla beans and a couple more pears. My favorite winter fruit salad is grapefruit slices that have been supremed so there isn’t any membranes, a little sugar to cut the grapefruit acid, toasted coconut flakes, and pomegranite seeds. So beautiful and so delicious.
Keep on writing as I love to read your blog!
Love it! I have fruit salads every morning for breakfast — I really believe in starting off the day with a light, healthy meal. Thanks for sharing this recipe! When I make it I may add dried dates as well (super nutritious!). Love your site and your photos are always beautiful :)
I hate fruit salad but LOVE anything with dried fruit in it!
This is a perfect dessert as part of the Thanksgiving menu!
I’m a huge fan of fruit salad, especially as a breakfast item, and this time of year is always a tough time for fruit, as you mention. I’m looking forward to trying this one - perhaps adding it to our thanksgiving meal this year.
persimmons would be a great addition!
My kind of salad. Looks so crunchy, fresh and delicious!
I was just at the supermarket a few hours ago, mourning the loss of summer fruit. This looks amazing, can’t wait to try it! Thanks for the inspiration :)
I sometimes add homemade berry vodka (berries steeped in vodka for a month or more) to grown up fruit salads. Very tasty.
I love fruit salad and happen to agree with you that it’s one of the very best things to break up a heavy meal. I frequently volunteer to bring the fruit salad to get togethers so I know I can have one! This sounds like a perfectly lovely accompaniment to a winter gathering. I might even add a splash of brandy…
oh, i love fruit salads too. winter meals can be so bogged down and heavy; this seems like a great addition. yay! maybe this could be my thanksgiving contribution!
I live in UK and have never come accross a Meyer lemon. Please explain the difference and how I can compensate for not being able to use them. I love your site btw!
Meyer lemons are mellower and a bit sweeter, with almost floral notes. Although they have a better taste, a lot of grocers don’t want to bother stocking them because they are softer and don’t last as long as the varieties we usually see.
You can substitute any lemon for the Meyer lemon. The recipe says to use one only if you can find it.
Mmm, that looks lovely. The pomegranate seeds are really pretty. And fruit salad is not ‘essential’ to me, but I do enjoy it.
This combines many of my favorite things and looks delicious. One question - how many servings does it yield? I live alone, so I don’t want to make too much.
Hi Dominique — I would say six servings. And it keeps pretty well, if you have extras.
I think your family is the only one that makes fruit salads for everything but I think it’s really cool that you grew up that way. Do you make a fruit salad for every season?
Ooooh how perfect. I adore fruit salad. It’s so sweet and so light. And the combination of those fruits is just perfect for the near-winter months. Thanks!
We love to have fruit salad! It’s great when there are going to be kids, since sometimes that’s all some of them will eat (picky eaters!). I tend to the non-whipped cream type fruit salad and during the winter there are all those great citrus fruits available. Seasonal fruit and dried fruits combine for great salads.
I love the addition of pomegranate seeds. A handful thrown in here and some over there, yum, they add such a fresh burst of flavor! A great combination of seasonal fruit….Very colorful and super delicious looking.
Your photos are really stunning. I especially like the pears and lone apple. Thanks for the cooking and photographic inspiration.
Question: What if, at this late date, I can’t get star anise in time for Thanksgiving? Or, um, if I am making fruit salad for a bunch of people whose fondness for strong licorice flavors is questionable at best? Can I leave the star anise out, or could you recommend a substitute?
christie try a couple of cinnamon sticks instead of the star anise — that’s what I’m going to do as I’m not real big on licorice flavors! Thanks for the great pear recipe — will add this to the thanksgiving meal!
Has anyone tried adding less sugar?
Or negotiated the problem of not having a vanilla bean?
Looks great, sounds delicious…but honestly, where would I find “Turkish apricots”????
this salad was delicious! thanks so much for the recipe!
Made this for Thanksgiving — I did not, in fact, find star anise, but I used 1.5 teaspoons of aniseed instead. It added a light anise flavor that (IMO) was a nice foil to the sweetness of the vanilla. I bet cinnamon sticks would have been great, too — thanks, Tonia. Everyone LOVED this salad, and it was the only non-carb, non-sauced-up item on the table. I was glad to have a lighter option. Thank you, Deb! (FWIW, I used bulk dried apricots and dried Mission figs from the baking aisle.)
Hey very very thank you for the recipie. I loved the salad.