I know it may be a little early in the season for watermelon where you are, or it may even be getting on for winter but I got a baby watermelon in my organic veg box this week. Look how cute it is.
Look, I put it next to a lemon for you so you can see how small it is. Watermelon is one of the ingredients in my favourite summer salad and it is definitely feeling a lot like summer here so this is what I made with it.
Watermelon, Feta & Mint Salad with Pistachio & Parsley
Serves 2, vegetarian, gluten-free. Adapted from Nigella Lawson
- 1/4 small red onion, very finely sliced
- the juice of half a lemon
- 400 g watermelon, rind & most of the seeds removed then cut into approx. 4 cm triangles
- 100g Greek Feta cheese
- a handful of fresh parsley leaves, left whole
- 5 or 6 fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
- 8 black or purple olives, halved & stoned
- black pepper
- extra virgen olive oil
- a handful of shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
- lemon wedges to serve
Put the finely sliced red onions in a small bowl and cover with the lemon juice. Leave to soak while you make the rest of the salad. This makes the flavour less harsh and turns them a pretty magenta colour.
Place the watermelon triangles in a beautifully random arrangement on your serving dish/plates. Cut or break the feta into similar sized pieces as the watermelon and scatter them amongst the watermelon. Tear off sprigs/leaves of parsley and do the same.
Tip the bright pink onions and their juices over the salad, add the olives, drizzle with a little olive oil and top with the chopped pistachios and a grinding of black pepper. Serve with extra wedges of lemon if you like.
This is me sending some much needed sunshine in the form of this beautiful salad to all the people in the UK celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee in the cold and rain.
This is my 93-year-old Grandad at a Jubilee garden party yesterday. He is wearing ski gloves, a shawl and a blanket over his legs. This is the 4th of June by the way, a typically English summer’s day!!
Sending you some sunshine Grandad, Enjoy!!
Cook Eat Live Vegetarian 
Love it!
This salad sounds so refreshing!! Love watermelon and Feta!
cool shot of your granddad.. and what a wonderful salad, perfectly balanced cast of surprising tastes!
I am using your recipe at my Wine bar and cafe in Phoenix AZ, watermelons are here and so is the heat, I am sure you do not mind me sharing your great recipe with my customers!
Don’t mind at all, I hope they enjoy it & it’s successful for you!. Lovely with a glass of cold rose!!
What a great salad and you know I have such a weakness for pistachios so this just drew me in. I love the pic of your granddad.
What a fantastic salad! 🙂 I love watermelon with feta, but pistachio is a new one in the mix for me!
(Also sorry for the long silence, I was busy with commencement/traveling.)
Wow! that is so small and cute. Didn’t even know baby watermelon existed. So cool. This salad sounds refreshing and tangy at the same time 😀
What acute watermelon, never seen them so small. I couldn’t face English summers anymore, often we go back during NZ winter to visit and find it’s not much warmer in the UK summer. Grandad is making the most of it though!
This salad looks so fresh and beautiful! That feta cheese looks delicious.
What an adorable watermelon! I’ve long meant to try a salad like this and yours has inspired me even more. I just need to wait a couple of months or so until our watermelons are in season!
What a diddy little watermelon – don´t think I´ve ever seen one so small! And a fantastic shot of your dear Grandfather, he looks so well and happy despite the miserable weather they´ve had in the UK!
Thats sooooo summery hija….looking forward to throwing those lovely ingredients together, bet they don’t look as special as yours tho’ !! besitos x
I do like Greek-style watermelon salad — in fact, I sometimes just make Greek salad with watermelon in it, or put a bowl of watermelon on the side. I had never heard of soaking onions in lemon juice to mellow them — usually, I just leave them out. Pistachios sound like a nice addition.
Natalie, I just wanted to thank you for your blog and for sharing so much with us. It’s almost a year now that I follow your walking with or without the dog, and have always been inspired by the beauty that emanates from your pages. As for this recipe in particular, I happened to have some watermelon in my fridge (rarity), and really wanted to use up some mint. So I had to try it, and it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.