<< Hawaiian Luau

08/29/11 - Watermelon Salad Recipe

We had this watermelon salad at the breakfast buffet at the Halekulani Hotel in Honolulu. We liked it so much that we had it a few times and reversed engineered it. At first, we thought the little white things were chunks of tofu, but further tasting revealed them to be mozzarella. It was an interesting salad and a real mixture of cultures, so we've adopted it as one of our luau standards. Either that, or make a jack-o-melon.

Watermelon salad - up close and personal
INGREDIENTS
  • 1/2 a small watermelon, just the meat, cut into mouth sized chunks
  • 1 large purple onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 big fistful of fresh coriander, chopped
  • 4 oz mozzarella cheese cut into 1/2" chunks
  • 1 large or 2 smaller tomatoes, cut into 1/2" chunks
  • 2 tbsp sesame oil
  • 2 - 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar, to taste
  • black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl.
  2. Serve.
SOME NOTES Use the best ingredients you can get. One family staying at Lake Crescent Cottage had a jack-o-melon on the cottage steps. We remarked that carving a watermelon in the manner of a jack-o-lantern was a neat idea. They explained that the watermelon had been so awful and flavorless that they couldn't think of a better use for it. It would have made an awful watermelon salad. So, buy a better watermelon than that.

Keywords: luau, recipe