Time for refreshing melon salad!
What to eat? The temperatures are soaring, it’s humid, the appetite isn’t up to much.
But you know you’ve got to replenish your weary body.
And, if you’re anything like us and you love your food, you’d like to actually sit and enjoy putting those energy-giving calories back in!
Thank goodness then for being able to eat seasonally. It’s Turkey’s melon season and these really easy melon salad recipes are perfect for hot, humid days.
Galia Or Honeydew Melon Salad With Feta & Blue Cheese
Turkey is a major producer of the galia melon and, at this time of year, Fethiye Market and Çalış Market are packed with melon stalls and trucks filled with galia, honeydew and huge watermelons.
They’re great (if a tad heavy to carry home) just to buy, cut up and then eat straight from the fridge. But they’re also great for a more savoury melon salad.
There are lots of variations to fresh salads containing melons. Play around and investigate for yourself.
This galia melon salad recipe is one of our favourites just because of the different textures and flavours.
It’s still light but the addition of nuts and cheese gives us a bit more energy and nutritional content.
We’re really lucky in Turkey that galia melons and other melon varieties are so abundant and affordable.
If you are buying them, just be careful with the price, otherwise you could be in for a shock.
In early season, they are obviously more expensive, and, sometimes, the price advertised is per kilo – not the full melon.
In the photo above, the tickets for the galia melon say ‘tane.’ This means the price underneath is for each melon. So, no surprises when you come to pay.
Galia Melon Nutrition
So, if we’re going to be making this melon salad, let’s have a look at some of the goodness we’re going to be getting from our main ingredient.
- They are rich in Vitamin C
- They are rich in Vitamin A
- They’re high in minerals such as potassium, calcium and iron
- They’re a good source of dietary fiber which aids digestion
- They contain no fat and no cholesterol
- They’re low in calories (26 calories per 100 grams)
Galia Melon Salad Recipe
The galia melon is a hybrid of the cantaloupe melon and the honeydew melon.
Where possible, we use galia in this salad because of its texture and juicy sweet flavours. You can use alternatives if you like.
Galia melon salad with mint and feta – and a hint of blue cheese for that all important extra flavour.
Served straight from the fridge, we have the cooling, juicy lemon pieces and the fresh flavours of the roughly chopped mint leaves.
White Turkish cheese and a few crumblings of blue cheese add both creaminess and flavour – the blue cheese works so well with the galia melon.
And then, rather than add salt, we go for texture and saltiness with a handful of salted cashews sprinkled over the top.
Olive oil and nar ekşisi dressing over the top and you have yourself a perfect summer melon salad.
What If I Prefer Watermelon?
If you’re thinking about how to make watermelon salad (karpuz salatası), then it’s really simple and so colourful.
We love this salad, too. A slight variation on the recipe below as it’s just a melon salad with mint and feta.
Exchange the onion for red onion and just look at the fabulous colour in your bowl. How can you not want to eat that, eh?
Don’t forget your drizzle of olive oil and nar ekşisi before you tuck in.
Galia Melon Salad With Cheese & Cashews
Ingredients
- 1 small galia melon halved & deseeded
- 1 small onion peeled, halved & thinly sliced into half moons
- 50 grams Turkish white cheese or feta cheese
- 20 grams blue cheese
- 30 grams cashew nuts roughly one handful
- 1 handful fresh mint leaves roughly chopped
- 1 dessert spoon olive oil to drizzle
- 1 dessert spoon pomegranate molasses to drizzle
Instructions
- First of all, remove the flesh from your galia melon. You can either do this by creating melon balls or by quartering the melon and using a sharp knife to slice away the flesh from the skin.
- Discard the melon skin.
- Chop your galia melon into bite-sized chunks and arrange in a serving bowl.
- Now sprinkle your onions and mint leaves over the top and mix everything together.
- Using your fingers, crumble your cheeses into the melon salad, making sure the cheese pieces are in small chunks.
- Stir your cheese in, gently.
- Now sprinkle your cashew nuts over the top of your salad and drizzle olive oil and pomegranate molasses (nar ekşisi) over them.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
- As with all of our recipes, this cheese and galia melon salad recipe has only an approximate calorie count. It is up to you how much dressing you want to use or which cheese brands.
- Allow around 200 grams of galia melon per person in this salad.
In Turkey, we use a low fat white cheese as this is a harder cheese. Use full fat if you want a creamier texture. - Nar ekşisi is popular in Turkish cuisine and is a sauce of pomegranate molasses. You can substitute with balsamic vinegar if you can’t get nar ekşisi.
Nutrition
Afiyet Olsun!
Melon Salad – Afternotes
- If you want to make watermelon salad, the Turkish word for watermelon is ‘karpuz.’
- For all other types of melon such as galia and cantaloupe, the Turkish word is ‘kavun.’
- We have added this recipe to the Meze & Salad section of our Turkish Recipes collection.