Classic Fruit Salad (with Honey Lime Dressing)

This Classic 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 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. It's also ideal for taking along to a potluck or brunch!

Jump to:

• 🥘Ingredients
• 🔪Instructions
• 🎥 Videos
• 💭 Top tip
• 📖Variations & Substitutions
• 🥘Main Dishes to accompany fruit salad
• 🍽Equipment
• 👪 Serving size
• 🌡️Storage
• 🦺Food safety
• ⭐ Reviews
• 📋Classic Salad Recipe (with honey lime dressing)
• 🍰More Healthy Desserts

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 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 oranges or peaches (whatever is available).

For this old fashioned fruit salad 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

1. Slice cantaloupe in half, remove seeds, skin and and cut cantaloupe into cubes.
2. Hull and slice strawberries (see video on "how to hull strawberries below). Peel oranges and separate into segments
3. Drain peaches and set aside juice (don't throw away - see Top Tip)
4. Chop peaches.
5. Remove skin from kiwis and chop. * I use the spoon method to peel - it's the easiest - see video below.
6. 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:

1. Juice half a lime
2. Add the zest from half the lime and honey to lime juice and whisk together.
3. 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 easy 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)
• 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, mango, strawberry or the yogurt of your choice.
• Whipped cream- Serve it with a dollop of whipped cream or 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 Classic 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 a sealed container (affiliate link).

These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing.

🦺Food safety

See guidelines at USDA.gov.

Have a holiday breakfast or brunch coming up? After so much holiday indulging, this fruit salad is the perfect light accompaniment to your meal!

⭐ Reviews

Did you make this recipe? Please RATE THE RECIPE below!

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🍰More Healthy Desserts

• Crustless Pumpkin Pie
• Watermelon Granola Trifle
• Gingerbread Fruit Christmas Wreath
• Healthy & Light Carrot Cake
• Skinny Pumpkin Cheesecake with Oreo Cookie Crust