Healthy Roasted Cantaloupe Salad recipe made in 30 minutes. It’s an easy savory and sweet melon tomato salad! I love this recipe for our garden Summer fruit! This salad is vegetarian, vegan and gluten free.
It’s Winter but I’m craving Summer food. Maybe it’s the cold, or maybe it’s the post holiday slump, but I am dreaming of garden fresh fruits and vegetables right now!
It doesn’t matter if it’s Winter or Summer where you are right now – you want this Roasted Cantaloupe Salad! Since it’s Winter in NYC, I’ll have to settle for store bought melon and tomatoes, but the greens will still come from our garden!
Come Summer time and this will be a full Summer melon salad from our garden – how’s that for hashtag garden to table, right?
Roasted Cantaloupe Salad Recipe
What does this Roasted Cantaloupe Salad have in it?
Cantaloupe Cherry Tomatoes Kale
How about that for a fresh salad? How about that for a grow your own lunch?
This cantaloupe salad is going to be ready in 25 minutes, and your home is going to smell like a fruit paradise.
Melon Salad
Cantaloupe is one of my favorite melons and I love that you can eat it savory or sweet. Most people think of cantaloupe as just something you eat fresh, but roasted melon – you guys! It’s magical! Cantaloupe is naturally sweet, so it has a natural caramelization to it.
I like to sprinkle some brown sugar on top to really bring out the sweetness (plus it helps my little one like it more! hah). I love the combo of the sweet melon, and savory roasted tomatoes (you know I love my roasted tomato sauce!).
You’ll want to arrange the cantaloupe and cherry tomatoes on parchment paper (easy clean up) on a baking sheet and then sprinkle the brown sugar on top. I find that 2 tablespoons does the trick.
If you want to use a alternative to brown sugar, I recommend using pure maple syrup.
Roast the cantaloupe at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, or until it’s soft. And then out of this oven comes this beauty….!
Serve it on some fresh greens, spinach or kale – it’s your choice! I don’t use a dressing, but instead use a spoon and drizzle some of the liquid that will be present on the pan with the cantaloupe. It’s so good!
How else can you eat this roasted cantaloupe?
Not craving a salad, that’s ok. Are you looking for breakfast? Then serve this on top of some oatmeal. Looking for dessert? Serve it on top of a warm piece of pie or some vanilla ice cream!
Can you freeze cantaloupe?
Maybe you’ll have a big cantaloupe and this recipe won’t use the entire thing. Don’t worry – you can freeze it. I like to cut my cantaloupe up into bite size pieces and then put in a freezer bag. I portion them into 1-2 cup servings, as I often use 1 cup for smoothies. Now months down the road when I’m craving a cantaloupe smoothie, I can pull out my frozen cantaloupe and use it!
How can you get kids to eat cantaloupe?
The first time I tried to get Enceladus to eat raw cantaloupe – she was like NOPE! She literally say NOPE! I was like Girl, you don’t know what you’re missing, and then I proceeded to eat all her cantaloupe (you snooze you loose kid).
But I want her to love all fruits and vegetables so it was time to get creative. After I roasted this cantaloupe, I grabbed a fork and a bowl and sat on the couch. Then you wait for them… kids, that is. They always come around when Mom is eating on the couch. “MMMM!” I said, “this cantaloupe is delicious”!
The rest was history. She wanted a bite. She loved it. And now she’s having roasted cantaloupe for breakfast and a snack!
Looking for more cantaloupe recipes? Try my cantaloupe chips!
Healthy Roasted Cantaloupe Salad recipe made in 30 minutes. It's an easy savory and sweet melon tomato salad! I love this recipe for our garden Summer fruit! This salad is vegetarian, vegan and gluten free.
By: Pamela Reed
Prep Time: 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 25 minutesminutes
Total Time 30 minutesminutes
serves 4
Ingredients
1small cantaloupe (about 4-5 cup)cubed
1/2cupcherry tomatoeshalved
greens of your choice - kale or spinach
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place parchment paper on top of baking sheet. Add cantaloupe and cherry tomatoes.
Bake for 25 minutes or until cantaloupe is soft. Remove from oven.
Place greens on plate and then add cantaloupe and tomatoes on top. I love drizzling the liquid in the pan that the cantaloupe produced over the salad.
Notes
What else can you do with roasted cantaloupe? Add on top of oatmeal for breakfast or ice cream for dessert!
Course: Salad
Keyword: cantaloupe salad
VegetarianSummer
Did you make this?I love seeing what you’ve made! Tag me on Instagram at @BrooklynFarmGirl and don’t forget to leave a comment & rating below.
Lemon juice is excellent, too, and so is a drizzle of vinegar. Balsamic with cantaloupe is classic Italian, but rice wine vinegar or sherry vinegar also work. When you have your vinegar-kissed melon, toss it into a green salad or onto a platter of tomatoes and fresh herbs—it'll feel right at home.
Turning it into a soup -- with mangos, or a white gazpacho with grapes and almonds. Making a melon jam or chutney. Using it as a thick base for a smoothie, or blending it with lime juice and honey for cantaloupe agua fresca. Grilling the melon with a touch of salt to bring out its sweetness, from AniQuadros.
It has a distinctive sweet flavor, and should not be sour or bitter. Unripe fruit has not fully developed its sweetness and tends to be lacking in flavor and crunchy, while overripe fruit has a mushy, mealy texture.
America's Test Kitchen recommends a ratio of 2 teaspoons sugar to 4 cups cubed watermelon. Toss the sugar with the melon in a colander set over a large bowl and let drain for 30 minutes. Discard (or save for another use) the liquid and use the watermelon as directed in the recipe.
The fiber, potassium, and vitamin C present in cantaloupes are important nutrients for your heart health. Potassium can help lower high blood pressure, which is a risk factor for heart disease. Fiber helps lower the levels of "bad cholesterol" in your body. It can also keep your blood pressure in check.
On the salty side, I like to make combinations of spices that are earthy and tart to amp up the savoriness of the salt. Sweet and smoky urfa chile mixes with coriander and sesame seeds in one mix, while the warmth of star anise and cinnamon is balanced with sour, smoky black lime in another.
Avoid using whole melons that have visible signs of decay or damaged rinds (such as mechanical damage or cracking) due to the increased risk that harmful bacteria may have contaminated the melons. Wash the outer surface of the melon thoroughly under cold, running water.
Both cantaloupe and honeydew melon are good choices, though cantaloupe contains more antioxidants. A good choice to reduce your risk of foodborne illness is the variety of melon with the honeydew melon rind and cantaloupe flesh.
Cantaloupe provides the body with 8% of the recommended daily amount of potassium, which is essential for proper function of the nervous system. Cantaloupe provides the B vitamins Niacin, Folate and Vitamin B6. Cantaloupe provides three key antioxidants – lutein, zeaxanthin and Beta-Cryptoxanthin.
Cantaloupes owe their orange color to high vitamin A content. A cup of this delicious melon contains less than 13 g of sugar. This may be a bit more than other fruits have, but it's still much less than you'd find in a 12-ounce can of soda, which has nearly 40 g of sugar and very little nutritional value.
Absolutely, but keep in mind that the salt has a purpose: it's downplaying the bitter flavors of the fruit and increasing the sweetness. Grapefruit would be excellent with a bit of salt, as would cantaloupe and green apples.
The salt brings out what little flavor a bad melon has and compensates for any lack of sweetness. It works, truly—trust me. Since, I've introduced this idea to the office, and it turns out there are even other ways to gussy up an otherwise drab melon. Some swear by a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice.
A sugar melon is a type of cantaloupe that is about 5–6 in (13–15 cm) in diameter and weighing between 2.5 and 4 lb (1.1 and 1.8 kg). Nearly round in shape, it has thick, sweet, orange flesh and a silvery gray, ribbed exterior.
The salt brings out what little flavor a bad melon has and compensates for any lack of sweetness. It works, truly—trust me. Since, I've introduced this idea to the office, and it turns out there are even other ways to gussy up an otherwise drab melon. Some swear by a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice.
A little sprinkle of salt over the flesh of a melon brings all the liquid to the surface of this water-rich fruit. As a result, every single bite you take is as juicy and sweet as it could ever possibly get! Melon salt is exactly what it sounds like, salt for melons!
You must allow the cantaloupe to mature completely on the vine. Unlike other fruits, melons do not develop any sugars once they are harvested, so the cantaloupe will not become any sweeter after you remove it from the vine.
Introduction: My name is Pres. Lawanda Wiegand, I am a inquisitive, helpful, glamorous, cheerful, open, clever, innocent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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