We are serving up a delightful salad today, one that may have you cautiously considering the combination of ingredients we incorporated. It’s a classic Greek Watermelon Salad with Feta, Mint & Basil, the perfect combination of sweet and salty. Full of sweet watermelon, crunchy cucumbers, red onions, feta cheese, tangy kalamata olives and fresh herbs, all topped with a drizzle of a simple balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Traditionally, this favorite summer salad served in Greece as a side dish, snack or light meal. You’ll love this simple, healthy and refreshing salad! 

How to Pick the Sweetest Watermelon

For the best Greek Watermelon Salad with Feta, Mint & Basil you need to find a sweet, ripe watermelon. Nothing screams summer more than fresh, juicy watermelon, so make sure you pick a good one!  Picking out the ripest fruit can be very tricky because obviously you can’t see the inside of the fruit. Once cut, there is nothing more disappointing to find that the watermelon is underripe. There are several ways to determine the ripeness of the fruit.

1. Pick up the watermelon, it should feel nice and heavy for its size.
2. Look for a yellow spot on the underside of the watermelon. This is the spot where the watermelon rests on the ground. If you cannot find the yellow spot, it means the watermelon was harvested too soon and did not fully ripen.
3. If the watermelon still has a stem attached, make sure it is green and not dried out and brown.
4. Popular opinion states tapping on the watermelon to see if it sounds hollow is another indication of a ripe fruit. Honestly, that doesn’t always work for us, so we prefer to rely on the above steps instead. 

List of Ingredients

• Watermelon
• Red Onion
• Cucumber
• Feta Cheese
• Kalamata Olives
• Olive OIl
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Pepper
• Fresh Mint
• Fresh Basil

Greek Watermelon Salad With Feta, Mint & Basil Is So Simple To Make!

Cut your watermelon into cubes and place it in a large serving bowl or platter. Peel and thinly slice the red onion and add it to the watermelon. We partially peeled the cucumber, sliced it thin, then added it to the watermelon. Crumble the feta cheese over the watermelon. Next, add the chopped, pitted kalamata olives. In a small bowl or jar whisk the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and add a dash of pepper.  Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and sprinkle with the chopped fresh mint and basil leaves.  If you are not serving the salad right away, do not add the vinaigrette, refrigerate the salad until you are ready and then add the dressing. 

That’s all there is to it! If you are looking for a cool and refreshing salad for the summer, give it a try and let us know by commenting below, we’d love to hear from you!  A variation of this salad is our recipe for Grilled Watermelon with Feta (click here), it’s another one of our summer favorite dishes!  

Stay up to date on our latest recipes by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and tag #Hearthealthygreek if you post a picture of one of our recipes! And get new recipes delivered right to your mailbox by subscribing to our mailing list!