It’s easy to scale this recipe. It would be the perfect dessert for a potluck or a snack to keep in the fridge over a week. It’s best to add the mint right before you eat the fruit salad (otherwise it wilts).
Despite the fact that stone fruit are far less reliable than berries- is there anything worse than a mealy peach? – they are my absolute favourite. I couldn’t think of anything more delicious than a stone fruit, hibiscus fruit salad.
I thought of hibiscus for it’s light floral taste but mostly for the vibrant, deep pink colour that it would give the whole bowl. As I was looking at my spice stash, a saw a small bag of chamomile and couldn’t resist adding it too. I love chamomile iced tea in the summer time, and I knew it would pair perfectly with stone fruit and hibiscus. Mint and lime seemed like obvious choices to boost the flavour overall. The zingy lime helps to balance and enhance the sweetness of the fruit and I love fresh mint. Ideally, your fruit will be perfectly ripe: not too soft but super sweet and juicy. That way, the fruit will hold it’s shape but also add maximum flavour and a bit of sweetness to the fruit salad.
I hope that this fruit salad has time to grace your table while summer fruit is still in season. I know that I will be savouring all the fruit over the next couple of months. While I maintain that there is nothing better than snacking on them raw, having a little fruit salad to generously spoon over some vanilla frozen yogurt, as the vibrant syrup, which has mixed with all of the stone fruit juices puddles at the bottom of your bowl is pretty great too.
Print- Yield: 8 -10 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 plums (sliced into wedges)
- 2 peaches (sliced into wedges)
- 2 nectarines (sliced into wedges)
- 2 apricots (sliced into wedges)
- 1/2 lb cherries (pitted and halved)
- 2/3 cups water
- 2 tablespoons dried hibiscus
- 1 tablespoon dried chamomile flowers
- 1 tablespoons sugar
- juice and zest 1/2 lime
- small handful of fresh mint (roughly chopped (optional))
Instructions
- In a small pot heat up the water and sugar. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar is combined.
- Add the hibiscus and chamomile and let it steep while you prepare your fruit.
- Cut up all of your fruit and place it in a large bowl.
- Strain the hibiscus and chamomile syrup and pour it over the fruit, toss gently.
- Add the zest and juice from half of a lime.
- Let the fruit salad sit for at least 30 minutes, tossing occasionally, to let the fruit macerate.
- Garnish with some chopped, fresh mint.
- Category: Dessert, Salad