Surprising savory fruit salads for your next dinner party

It was a fruit salad that rivaled the most complex, extravagant dish on any tasting menu I’ve had in recent memory. Subtle and nearly monochrome, it was calming on the eyes like a Robert Ryman hanging in the Tate Modern.

The fruit salad arrived as the first course on this week’s Tuesday supper menu at Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica. Segments of oro blanco were arranged like an intricate puzzle with wedges of ripe avocado and rounds of golden turnip dressed with juice from the fruit and good olive oil. Scattered over the top were torn mint leaves and frizzled fried shallots. Underneath were golden spheres of vadouvan.

It teased and awakened the palate with something bright and refined. I was instantly hungry for more, inspired to create my own savory fruit salads at home. Maybe I could incorporate the cherries just coming to market with beets and some goat cheese, or plums with sweet cherry tomatoes in a shallot vinaigrette.

“I knew it was a winner,” said Rustic Canyon chef-owner Jeremy Fox. His executive sous chef, Elijah G Deleon prepared and presented the dish to him last Friday. The two work together on the weekly supper menus presented as three courses for $75 on Tuesdays.

“I make some suggestions, but that dish was all his,” Fox said.

The supper menus are bare bones, straightforward cooking centered around specific farms. For this Tuesday, the oro blanco and avocado were from JJ’s Lone Daughter Ranch in Redlands.

“I love using fruit in savory applications,” Fox said. “We just did Harry’s Berries strawberries with feta that made its way onto the menu with the addition of cucumbers.”

The success of the oro blanco salad lies in the fruit’s larger, meatier segments, and the ability to straddle the line between acidic and sweet. The avocados impart just the right amount of creaminess and the vadouvan, coarsely blended and intensely flavored with lots of onion and garlic, coriander, cumin, fenugreek and fenugreek seed, adds depth and body to the salad.

The leaves of torn mint pop with freshness, and the fried shallots are crunchy and almost sweet.

“I think a good way to structure a fruit salad is to have the fruit that is not just sweet but has good acid to it as well,” Fox said. “Something to counter it with salt and something slightly creamy for mouthfeel. I think that’s the blueprint to follow.”

It’s the sort of combination of ingredients, flavors and textures I’d never dream of and now can’t imagine doing without. Maybe it will make its way onto the menu. In the meantime, I’ll be building more stellar salads around fruit, starting with the three recipes below.

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Roasted Beets, Citrus, Labneh, Zhoug

I’ve made this recipe for countless dinner parties, switching up the citrus with whatever is at the market. I love the way the cool, smooth labneh helps tame the heat of the zhoug, with a spice level you can dial up or down depending on your preference. It’s fresh, vibrant, and a great start to any meal.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 1 hour 15 minutes.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Thyme-Infused Vinaigrette

With an abundance of strawberries at the market, they’re the perfect way to liven up a green salad. This spinach salad with thyme-infused vinaigrette is a favorite. I like to double the recipe for the dressing and use it all week long.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 30 minutes.

(Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Cold and Salty Orange Salad

This is a salad I’ve prepared with oranges, mandarins, grapefruit and persimmon when they’re in season (bookmark this recipe for fall, too). Our former cooking editor Ben Mims was a master at recalibrating familiar ingredients into showstopping dishes. His salty-things vinaigrette is something I could eat straight with a spoon. It will counterbalance the sweetness of whatever fruit you choose, perfectly.
Get the recipe.
Cook time: 20 minutes, plus 1 hour unattended.

This is a salad of sweet orange citrus marinated in a salty-things vinaigrette made with feta, grated celery, anchovies, salt-cured olives, and capers.

(Ben Mims / Los Angeles Times)