Here is a fabulous idea for a summer fruit salad. It is the perfect party appetizer. Yes, it has several steps and looks like a lot of work, but it really wasn't that bad. The most time consuming part was dicing the fruit for the fruit salad. If you wanted to enjoy this recipe with a little less work, you could simply rough chop all of the ingredients for the fruit salad and serve in bowls. I highly recommend making the cilantro-lime creme dressing to top your fruit salad- it is quite good!
This recipe was inspired by this post. I raw-veganized it for the version below. This recipe does not contain any dairy, eggs, gluten, grains, soy, corn, or refined sugar.
Raw Vegan Watermelon Cups
For the Fruit Salad:
1 mini seedless watermelon, 3-5 lbs
2/3 cup jicama, small dice
4 ripe yellow peaches, small dice
1/3 cup sweet or red onion, finely chopped
1/2 granny smith apple, small dice
1 clove garlic, pressed
1-2 tbsp fresh lime juice (depending on how tangy you want it)
1/2 fresh jalapeno, small dice (seeds and membrane removed if you don't like spicy stuff)
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped plus several small whole leaves to garnish
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper
For the Cream Sauce:
3/4 cup soaked cashews (soak raw cashews in filtered water for 4-8 hours, drain)
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons agave nectar
1/4 cup filtered water
Pinch of himalayan salt
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 tbsp minced fresh jalapeno
Method
To make the watermelon cups:
Cut the ends off of the watermelon. Stand the watermelon up on one of the flat ends and cut off the sides, forming a rectangle. Discard the rind, but keep the watermelon "scraps" to add to the fruit salad.
Cut the rectangle into cubes. I pretty much just sliced mine evenly into squares- think Rubix Cube :)
Use a knife or a melon baller to hollow out the inside of each cube. I made mine square because I was in the mood to put in some extra effort, but you could just use a melon baller or spoon and make little wells in the cube. Once the cube is filled with fruit salad, you don't really see the shape of the hole anyway.
Put the watermelon cubes in the refrigerator until you are ready to fill them.
To make the fruit salad:
Finely dice the remaining watermelon, jicama, peaches, onion, green apple, and jalapeno.
Add to bowl, add lime juice and garlic.
Add chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and stir to combine.
Refrigerate until ready to fill cups.
To make the creme sauce:
Blend cashews, lemon juice, agave, water and salt until smooth.
In a bowl, add cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and 1/2 cup of the cashew creme and stir to combine.
To assemble:
Fill watermelon cubes with fruit salad, top with cilantro lime sauce, and enjoy!
