EASY & Refreshing Watermelon Salad!

This watermelon salad is lush and refreshing and made in 5 minutes! There's no reason why you can't have this every day during summer as its healthy, delicious and easy to make using sweet watermelon, cucumber, red onion, feta and a simple lime honey dressing. I make this vegetarian watermelon salad twice a week every week during summer as a side dish and it gets gobbled up so quickly that I cannot keep up. It is so easy but it doesn't taste easy. Make this watermelon salad for the upcoming long weekend and enjoy the best of summer. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader.

I'm not even exaggerating when I say how often I make this watermelon salad. Mr NQN and I both love this salad and sometimes when there's only a bit left in the bowl we bicker over who is getting the last of it. Sometimes when it's super hot we just have this for dinner, other times I make it as a healthy side dish to go with seafood, pizza or grilled meat.

Tips For Making Watermelon Salad

1 - Every bite of this salad is refreshing from the sweet watermelon to the juicy cucumber. I start with a sweet watermelon. Do you remember how I mentioned how to pick the best watermelon? It's to look for an orange or yellow field spot (where the watermelon sits in the field at the farm) on the melon. Avoid melons with white field spots as they have not ripened enough.

2 - I always use red onion in this salad as it is the sweetest type of onion and can be eaten raw. Just make sure to slice it very thinly.

3 - I love the honey lime dressing because it is one of those simple shaker dressing. Add the honey, lime juice, olive oil and salt to a jar, close the lid and shake it well. Jarred dressings are the best for entertaining because you can make them ahead of time and just shake it together before dressing the salad. Shaking a dressing in a jar is much better than emulsifying with a whisk!

4 - This watermelon salad is great even after a day or two (or even three!) in the fridge. The flavours meld together a bit more after a day. I prefer this watermelon salad on the first day freshly made but Mr NQN loved it on the subsequent days!

5 - You can make this vegetarian watermelon salad vegan by omitting the feta and changing the honey to maple syrup!

• Esquites or Mexican Street Corn Salad
• Tomato Strawberry Salad
• Summer Tomato Salad
• Yellow Peach, Fig & Goat's Cheese Salad
• Jalapeno Potato Salad
• 5 Minute Cucumber and Pomegranate Salad

Speaking of healthy, a few weeks ago at the end of December Mr NQN asked me if I was up for a challenge. I was lying in bed watching a movie and was exhausted from Christmas. "Hell no," I said but it was muffled as I muttered it into the pillow and my face was squished against it.

Undeterred he continued, "It's a Step challenge...to do10,000 steps a day."

I know he likes to do physical challenges with me because he is naturally a very sporty person and I just lack coordination so any sort of physical challenge is well, a challenge for me. But he talked me into it. Both our watches track our steps and at the end of the first work day around 6pm we checked our watches. I had done 4,500 steps during the work day doing cooking and my daily HIIT while he had under 1,000 as he sits on his computer.

"Humph," he said grumpily. But then we took a long walk along the beach and by the end of it we counted our steps. And it turned out that I had bested his steps again. "How is this possible?" he said as we had walked the same route. Then he realised that at 5 foot tall I take much smaller steps than him as he stands 6 foot 2 inches tall. Could it be that my height (or lack of it) was finally benefitting me? He tried taking smaller steps to get more in but he couldn't and every day, he would get frustrated that I would end up with more steps than him.

Sadly about 10 days into the challenge, Mr NQN had to quit the 10,000 a step challenge. In his effort to get to 10,000 steps he would go running but he developed plantar fasciitis. I'm still going although with nobody to challenge me, my motivation is a bit lower. But my motivation to eat this watermelon salad several times a week is still high!

So tell me Dear Reader, are you good at physical challenges? Do you need someone to challenge you to motivate you?

## Watermelon Salad

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 0 minutes

• 750g/1.6lbs watermelon flesh only, cubed or cut into triangles
• 2 Lebanese cucumbers (around 180g/6ozs), cut into rings or triangles
• 80g/2.8ozs red onion, very thinly sliced
• 100g/3.5 ozs feta cheese, crumbled (I used Persian feta)
• Small handful mint leaves

Dressing

• 28g/1oz honey
• 28ml/1floz lime juice
• 28ml/1floz extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Step 1 - Place the watermelon, cucumber, sliced onion, feta cheese and mint leaves into a bowl and toss with spoons or hands. Place the honey, lime juice, oil and salt into a small jar and shake well to ensure honey is emulsified. Pour over the salad and toss gently to dress everything.

Store this watermelon salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.