Melon Well being Advantages + High Methods to Use Melon & Melon Recipes

What’s the well being advantage of melon? Questioning how one can use melon within the kitchen? On the lookout for fabulous melon recipes? I’ve acquired you coated with this 101 melon information answering your high questions on melon well being advantages and past. Get this melon checklist too.

A candy juicy melon on a sizzling summer season day is one in every of summer season’s finest rewards, isn’t it? After I was a child, I visited my aunt and uncle’s watermelon farm in Idaho in the course of the summers. We’d every pick our favourite watermelon within the area, decide it up, throw it right down to crack it open, and eat out the guts with our grubby little paws. On these sizzling, dusty days, nothing tasted higher! I can scent the candy watermelon nectar simply eager about it. Ever since then, I’ve been completely in love with summer season’s bounty of melons: watermelons, crenshaws, cantaloupes, honeydews—and plenty of extra uncommon varieties past these. Melons are so candy and yummy; and so they’re actually at their finest, served merely and unadorned. However they’re additionally fabulous in so many recipes. I’ve melons rising in my backyard every summer season, and I’m enamored with their cheery flowers and curling vines because the fruits start to emerge. However do you know that melons supply extra than simply good style? They’re filled with well being advantages, and are extra versatile within the kitchen than you may think.

What Are Melons?

Melons are candy edible fleshy fruits within the Cucurbitaceae household. Botanically talking, melons are literally a form of berry. First originating in Africa and Southwest Asia, melons made their strategy to Europe in the course of the Roman Empire—in truth, they had been cultivated in historical Egypt. These candy juicy fruits had been among the many first to be domesticated within the Outdated World, in addition to the New World. There are lots of varieties of melons accessible (over a thousand varieties!), every with completely different sizes, shapes, peels, colours, and flavors. When you’ll discover the essential varieties in supermarkets, try a farmers market to identify a wider vary of bizarre varieties. And check out rising them in your personal backyard. Melons peak within the heat summer season months.

Melon Checklist

Strive a few of these extra generally accessible melons.

• Ambrosia
• Canary
• Cantaloupe
• Charentais
• Crenshaw
• Galia
• Hami
• Harper
• Honeydew
• Piel de Sapo
• Sharlyn
• Snow Leopard
• Watermelon

Melon Well being Advantages

These fruits will not be solely scrumptious, however they’re filled with hydrating fluid, fiber, vitamin C, and phytochemicals linked with their shade—all for a thin little calorie load. For instance, do you know that watermelon comprises lycopene—the compound linked with prostate most cancers safety? Every melon has completely different plant compounds linked with its shade, providing antioxidant and anti inflammatory motion.

Easy methods to Use Melons within the Kitchen

In fact, the easiest way to get pleasure from melon is contemporary and easy. Simply slice into wedges and chunk in! Nonetheless, you need to use melons in fascinating methods past contemporary slices. Melons can be utilized in breakfast bowls, salads, chilly soups, smoothies, sorbets, popsicles, and even grilled for a caramelized deal with. Discover extra methods to make use of melons beneath. Easy methods to decide a melon? Search for melons that really feel heavy for its measurement, with a barely candy scent (for some varieties of melons) that isn’t overpowering (which might point out over ripe fruit). For watermelons, you might wish to give the floor a light-weight knock—if it sounds hole, it needs to be ripe and able to get pleasure from. For cantaloupes, search for outer surfaces that aren’t inexperienced, which signifies it’s not ripe.

High 5 Methods to Use Melons

Take advantage of melons when they’re in season! Strive these fascinating methods to place melons in your menu.

1. Au Naturel

One of many best methods to get pleasure from melons is of their pure kind. Only a wedge with breakfast, as a snack, or for dessert is the way in which to go! It doesn’t matter what the kind of melon, begin by washing the surface floor of the melon. For honeydew/cantaloupe varieties, slice in half, scoop out the seeds (it can save you them to replant in your backyard), and slice it into wedges. For watermelons, slice in half, then quarters, and slice into wedges. You may select to take away the rind or peel (strive pickling watermelon rind!), or folks can chunk across the rinds. You can even chop the melon flesh into simple chunks to get pleasure from out of hand, on fruit platters, or in fruit skewers served with my strawberry tofu dip in my ebook The Plant-Powered Eating regimen.

2. Savory Pairings 

Do you know that candy, fragrant melons pair very well with savory dishes? That’s proper! You may grill wedges or chunks of melon on veggie kebabs with tofu or tempeh (strive melons in my Hawaiian Tempeh Skewers), and even mix contemporary melon in an natural cool soup, corresponding to my Cucumber Avocado Soup. Strive cantaloupe on this simple pizza recipe, Cantaloupe Basil Flatbread Pizza.

3. Bowled Over with Melons

So many bowls are divine with the addition of juicy, candy melons. Slice chunks of honeydew over your subsequent Inexperienced Goddess Grain Bowl, puree watermelons right into a smoothie bowl, and use watermelon in a Vegan Poke Bowl. You can even strive a easy melon parfait bowl, which is without doubt one of the finest no-fuss, no-cook, hands-down scrumptious and wholesome breakfasts, lunches or snacks within the summertime. Simply layer cubed melon with plant-based yogurt, granola, dried fruit, and nuts or seeds.

4. Toss up a Fairly Salad 

Melons simply shine in salads—providing simply the correct amount of crunchy, juicy sweetness. Whether or not it’s a inexperienced salad, grain salad, or pasta salad, toss in some chunks of melons for taste and texture. Strive my watermelon salad in my ebook The Plant-Powered Eating regimen, or this yummy cantaloupe salad featured above. 

5. Drinks Galore 

Hydrating melons are completely suited to a wide range of drinks, from smoothies to slushies to cocktails! Drop just a few cubes of melon in a blender with a little bit of lemon juice and you may whip up a scrumptious fruity drink very quickly. Or just add cubed melon to your favourite smoothie recipe, with a little bit of plant-based milk, seeds, nuts, and greens. Try this Watermelon Basil Slushie for begins and revel in this Cantaloupe Margarita (featured above) for celebrations.

High 7 Melon Recipes

Try these favourite plant-based wholesome melon recipes:

• Vegan Poke Bowl with Tofu, Watermelon, and Quinoa
• Watermelon Chia Ginger Smoothie Bowl
• Watermelon Basil Slushie
• Rose Sangria Sparkler
• Radish Salad with Cantaloupe and Pumpkin Seeds
• Vegan Cantaloupe Basil Flatbread Pizza
• Mild & Beautiful Cantaloupe Margarita

Additionally, strive these 40 Vegan Summer time Fruit Recipes with Melon!

For extra Plant 101 Guides, try the next:

• Zucchini 101: Zucchini Well being Advantages + Zucchini Recipes and Cooking Ideas
• Easy methods to Cook dinner Millet
• High 5 Methods to Cook dinner Celery Root
• High 5 Methods to Cook dinner Tempeh + Tempeh Recipes
• High 5 Methods to Use Rapini + Rapini Recipe Information
• High 5 Methods to Use Turmeric + Turmeric Recipes
• High 5 Methods to Use Chickpeas
• Easy methods to Use Blackberries
• Easy methods to Use Candy Potatoes
• Easy methods to Use Carrots

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