This Old Fashioned Fruit Salad is the way my Mom makes it and it's the best! So obviously I wanted to share it here. So what makes this fruit salad so special? It's the combination of the fruits she uses (cantaloupe, strawberries, pears, kiwi, peaches, oranges and grapes) and the addition of crushed pineapple. But I also serve it with a honey lime dressing that elevates it to that next level of deliciousness!
Fruit salad is an easy to make and a great guilt-free dessert for any time. This one also makes an excellent choice for a breakfast fruit salad. It pairs perfectly with almost any breakfast or brunch, but especially with my Easy Eggs Benedict with Prosciutto & Quick Blender Artichoke & Roasted Red Pepper Hollandaise Sauce. This Classic Fruit salad is also ideal for taking along to a potluck or brunch!
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This easy Fruit salad is ideal as a dessert on its own or as an addition to a dessert buffet. A lot of people like to serve a classic fruit salad with Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter meals!
🥘Ingredients
My Mom never uses blueberries or raspberries in her fruit salad recipe because they run. This is especially important if you're making it a day in advance. I like to make it in advance because there's lots of chopping. You can use fresh or canned fruit (oranges or peaches, depending on availability).
For this old fashioned recipe, you'll need:
- canned crushed pineapple
- kiwi
- strawberries
- mandarin oranges *use fresh or canned
- peaches - *use fresh or canned
- cantaloupe
- pears
- grapes * red or green
For the Honey Lime Dressing you'll need:
- liquid honey
- fresh lime
See recipe card for quantities.
🔪Instructions
- Slice cantaloupe in half, remove seeds, skin and and cut cantaloupe into cubes.
- Hull and slice strawberries (see video on "how to hull strawberries below). Peel oranges and separate into segments
- Drain peaches and set aside juice (don't throw away - see Top Tip)
- Chop peaches.
- Remove skin from kiwis and chop. * I use the spoon method to peel - it's the easiest - see video below.
- Remove core from pear, peel skin and chop.
🎥 Videos
How to Hull Strawberries video
How to peel a kiwi with a spoon
Add all chopped fruit to bowl, as well grapes. Then add the canned crushed pineapple (and liquid) and mix together.
To make the citrus dressing:
- Juice half a lime
- Add the zest from half the lime and honey to lime juice and whisk together.
- Pour over salad and mix.
💭 Top tip
Don't throw away your peach juice- add it to the juice in your fridge (it goes great with orange juice!) This is what my Mom always did; she hates to waste food 🙂
📖Variations & Substitutions
This delicious fruit salad is naturally gluten-free, dairy-free and Weight Watchers friendly!
- Vegan - use agave instead of honey - just use ½ the amount
- Bananas - if you want to use bananas, add them to each individual serving, at time of serving.
- Watermelon - add watermelon if you like (my Mom does sometimes)
- Pineapple- you can use pineapple chunks instead of crushed
- Honey Lime Dressing - you can make this without the dressing if you want to save on calories/WW points, but it really does taste even more amazing with the dressing!
- Yogurt Dressing- serve it with vanilla yogurt, mango, strawberry or the yogurt of your choice.
- Whipped cream- Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream, cool whip or another whipped topping
- As a Topping- serve it over plain Greek yogurt (for a healthier snack- you may need to add a little extra honey), serve over vanilla ice cream or pancakes!
🥘Main Dishes to accompany fruit salad
This makes a great brunch or breakfast fruit salad and pairs well with:
- Award-Winning Maple Sausage Brunch Bites
- French Toast Sandwich (with Raspberry Cream)
- Healthy Mediterranean Breakfast Burritos
- Sheet Pan Pumpkin Pie Pancakes
- Butter Tart Waffles
- Ukrainian Breakfast Hash
- Healthy Eggs Benedict (shown)
🍽Equipment
To make this Classic Fruit Salad, you will need a large cutting board (affiliate link), a good chefs knife (affiliate link) and I recommend a small paring knife (affiliate link) for peeling. You'll also want a set of salad serving spoons (affiliate link).
To make the Honey Lime Dressing, you'll want to get a juicer (affiliate link) - I like the simplicity of the manual juicers - and a zester (affiliate link)
👪 Serving size
This Old-fashioned Fruit salad serves 10 (1 cup servings). But you can half, double or triple the recipe by simply clicking on the blue serving number and selecting the number of servings you'd like. The ingredient quantities will automatically adjust. I like to serve it in small individual dessert bowls (affiliate link).
🌡️Storage
If you want to make this Old Fashioned Fruit salad in advance, I don't recommend making it any sooner than the night before. Add the dressing right before serving. Leftovers are good for 2 days in the fridge in an airtight container (affiliate link).
These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing.
🦺Food safety
Have a holiday breakfast or brunch coming up? After so much holiday indulging, this fruit salad is the perfect light accompaniment to your meal!
The best way to keep fruit in your fruit salad from turning brown is to coat it with an acidic fruit juice such as pineapple or lemon.
Add extra flavor to make fruit salad even better with a delicious honey lime dressing!
And if you love fruit for dessert, be sure to try my Fruit Pizza!
📋Old Fashioned Fruit Salad Recipe (with honey lime dressing)
Ingredients
- 1 whole cantaloupe *chopped
- 454 g strawberries * about 1 lb
- 3 mandarin oranges *separated into segments
- 540 ml container peaches (no sugar added) * drained (save liquid to add to juice)
- 4 kiwis *chopped
- 2 whole pears *peeled, cored and chopped
- 1.5 cups grapes, whole *about ⅓ bag
- 398 ml - can of crushed pineapple * small can - do not drain liquid
Honey Lime Dressing:
- ¼ cup liquid honey
- ¾ tablespoon fresh lime juice * about the juice of ½ a lime
- ¾ teaspoon lime zest * about the zest of ½ a lime
Instructions
- Slice cantaloupe in half, remove seeds, skin and and cut cantaloupe into cubes.
- Hull and slice strawberries. Peel oranges and separate into segments
- Drain peaches and set aside juice (for another use- see NOTES)
- Chop peaches.
- Remove skin from kiwis and chop.
- Remove core from pear, peel skin and chop.
- Add all chopped fruit to a large bowl, as well grapes. Then add the canned crushed pineapple (and liquid) and mix together.
Honey Lime Dressing
- Juice ½ a lime
- Mix honey with lime juice and lime zest.
- Pour over salad and mix.
- Serve immediately
Notes
Terri Gilson
Everyone loves this fruit salad and the honey lime dressing makes it extra special!