The Best Fruit Salad

This is my "best fruit salad" because it's easy to make, super flexible to customize actual fruits based on season and availability, and the best part is it is ridiculously yummy. I would easily choose a bowl of this over basically any random snack or treat in my kitchen. Am I the only one here who is a fruit lover to that extent? Or is this truly just the best fruit salad ever?.. Let's see..

This is my “best fruit salad” because it’s easy to make, super flexible to customize actual fruits based on season and availability, and the best part is it is ridiculously yummy. I would easily choose a bowl of this over basically any random snack or treat in my kitchen. Am I the only one here who is a fruit lover to that extent? Or is this truly just the best fruit salad ever?.. Let’s see..

Back-to-School Fruit Salad Season

It is officially back-to-school season, and I feel like all I have been hearing from friends lately is that someone is sick. Their kid is sick. They are sick. Half the class is sick. You know the drill.

We have managed to avoid all of that so far — knock on wood — and obviously there is no magical fruit salad that can prevent you from getting sick, but one thing I can do is make sure we are eating plenty of colorful fruits and veggies, staying hydrated and generally giving our bodies all the good stuff they need.

And lately, this fruit salad has been on repeat.

I have always been a huge fruit person. Like, give me a giant bowl of perfectly ripe, juicy, tart, sweet fruit and I am genuinely happier than I would be with most desserts. And the thing I love about a fruit salad is that you don’t have to choose. You don’t have to decide whether you want an apple or kiwi or grapes or citrus or blueberries. You get ALL of it. Sometimes in the same bite.

And that is really the secret to making an amazing fruit salad. It’s not about following an exact list of fruits. It’s about getting the formula right.

My Formula for the Best Fruit Salad

First: texture.

You need something crunchy. Something soft. Something super juicy. Maybe something slightly chewy or snappy. An apple next to a soft kiwi next to a juicy grapefruit segment next to a crisp grape is infinitely more interesting than a bowl filled with fruits that all have basically the same texture.

Next: flavor.

You want sweet, tart, tangy and even a little bit sour or bitter. This is why I love adding grapefruit and citrus instead of making a fruit salad that is purely sweet. Every bite tastes a little bit different.

Then you need juice. This is important! You want some liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl because as everything sits together, those fruit juices mingle and basically create their own fresh fruit dressing. I usually add fresh lemon and/or lime juice, plus one of my favorite secret ingredients…

My Secret Ingredient: Canned Mandarin Oranges

Okay, technically you could use any mandarin oranges here, but I am extremely loyal to the Native Forest canned mandarin oranges. Yes, they are around five dollars a can, which feels mildly ridiculous for canned oranges, but I LOVE them.

And I don’t drain them!

That juice goes straight into my fruit salad. It has this very specific tangy mandarin flavor with almost a slightly bitter edge to it, and it adds so much depth to the whole bowl. Combined with fresh lemon and lime juice and all the juices released by the other fruits, it creates the most delicious little citrusy fruit bath at the bottom of the bowl.

And finally: zest.

Do not skip the zest! Fresh lemon or lime zest takes a bowl of chopped fruit and makes it taste like you actually did something to it. You get all of those fragrant citrus oils without adding more liquid or making everything aggressively sour.

That little bit of zest is probably one of the easiest ways to make an ordinary fruit salad taste special.

The Fruit Salad I Made Today

Today’s version was:

• 4 kiwis
• 1 Honeycrisp apple
• 1 grapefruit
• 1 can Native Forest mandarin oranges, with the juice
• Red grapes
• Blueberries
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 lime
• Fresh lemon and/or lime zest

That’s it.

Chop everything into bite-sized pieces, add it to a giant bowl, pour in the mandarins and their juice, squeeze the fresh citrus over everything and finish with plenty of fresh zest. Toss gently and eat immediately, or let it hang out in the fridge so all those juices and flavors can mingle.

And please do not feel married to that ingredient list.

Strawberries? Absolutely. Raspberries? Yes. Mango? Obviously. Pineapple, watermelon, peaches, nectarines, pears, pomegranate, cherries? Throw them in. The entire point of this recipe is to look at what is seasonal, what looks good at the store and what is already sitting in your refrigerator and build from there.

Just remember the formula: different textures + different levels of sweetness and acidity + plenty of juicy fruit + fresh citrus juice + zest.

Green Kiwi vs. Golden Kiwi

Another fun way to change things up is to use both green and golden kiwi. They actually have slightly different nutritional profiles — golden kiwi tends to be especially high in vitamin C and also provides vitamin E, while green kiwi generally brings a bit more fiber to the bowl.

But honestly, I mostly love using both because they taste different. Golden kiwi is sweeter and smoother, while green kiwi has that classic bright, tart kiwi flavor. Put them together and you’re doing exactly what makes this salad so good in the first place: adding contrast.

Eat the Rainbow — But Actually

One of the reasons I love combining so many different fruits is that you’re also getting a wider variety of naturally occurring plant compounds. Different fruits contain different vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals, including the pigments and compounds that give plants their different colors.

So rather than deciding you are an “apple person” and eating an apple every single day, variety is a really good thing. Blueberries bring something different to the table than citrus. Kiwi is different from grapes. Grapefruit is different from mango. It’s one of the reasons “eat the rainbow” is actually pretty solid advice.

And this is where fruit salad becomes kind of genius: you don’t have to think very hard about any of that. You just eat a giant delicious bowl of fruit.

The Thing I’ve Always Loved About Fruit

It’s funny because when I really think about it, encouraging people to keep loving fruits and vegetables has basically been part of my entire career.

Kids naturally get so excited about fruit. Blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, apples — put a giant platter of beautiful fruit in front of a group of kids and watch what happens. Somewhere along the way, though, adults start making food incredibly complicated.

And I would love for us not to lose that very simple instinct of: This is colorful. This is juicy. This tastes amazing. I want to eat it.

No blender. No stove. No baking. No complicated dressing. You need a knife, a big bowl and whatever beautiful fruit you can find.

Ten-ish minutes later, you have what I will continue to confidently call the best fruit salad ever.

And yes, I will absolutely choose a giant bowl of this over basically any random snack in my kitchen.

Fruit people, please tell me I’m not alone.

And PS. yes, I do other fruit salad recipes too - like this winter white fruit salad. And yes, all fruit salads pair so well with vegan yogurt parfaits or oatmeal!

Happy eating! ~ K