As we all know there are no rules for making salads. To emphasize this try to define a salad. A dish comprised on greens and vegetables? Not necessarily, potato salad has no greens. A cold dish comprised of vegetables? Not necessarily, what about fruit salads? A dish that is served cold? Not necessarily, many contemporary salad recipes are meant to be served warm.

Although there are limitless recipes and combinations of greens, vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheese, seafood, beef, poultry, beans, tofu, and breads for salad making, this time of year, a seasonal way to dress up a salad is to include summer fruit.

Adding fruit to salads usually brings to mind apples, pears or other soft fruit. Although we love salads made with these type fruits, other less common fruit choices make fabulous salads as well.

Getting creative with salad ingredients is fun, produces some incredible results and is also easy to do. When choosing ingredients, the best combinations are a collection of ingredients with different properties such as sweet, salty, bitter, hot, crunchy, tart etc. As an example, sweet can be from any fruit, salty can come from dried meats, bitter from greens, hot from peppers or spices, crunchy from nuts or gf croutons and tart from cheeses.

Choosing dressings is just as easy. Generally, we create dressings for salads relative to the theme of the salad. As an example, if your salad has an Italian theme, the dressing might include olive oil, red wine or balsamic vinegar and maybe shallots or garlic and fresh basil. If your salad, such as the watermelon salad relies heavily on a particular fruit, the acid in your dressing might be more appropriate as a fruit juice, such as lemon juice.

A rule of thumb for creating vinaigrette type dressings is to keep your ratio 3 to 1. 3 oils to 1 acid. To this formula you can add any herbs or garlic or shallots or other ingredients.

Our favorite greens and fruit salad combination is Mesclun w/Watermelon, Feta & Toasted Pine Nuts. This salad combines greens, watermelon, fennel and red onion to create an explosion of irresistible flavor in every bite. Every time we serve this salad I wait for my guests to take their first bite and then listen for the exclamations, "Wow! What a delicious and unusual salad! I would never have thought to combine these ingredients".

To get you started, here are more incredible greens and fruit salad recipes:

Mixed Greens with Poached Shrimp & Grapefruit

Arugula Fennel Pear Orange Pommegranate Salad

Avocado & Mango Salad

Mesclun w/Watermelon, Feta & Toasted Pine Nuts

Cantaloupe & Procuitto Salad

Fresh Cherry & Procuitto Salad

Fresh Orange Salad w/Sauteed Scallops

Strawberry Salad

Pear Beet & Fennel Salad

Mixed Greens w/Apples, Grapes & Toasted Pecans

- Glutenfreeda