The Fruity Ingredient That Makes Fruit Salad Taste Like It's From A Luxurious Restaurant

Fruit salad doesn't need to be boring, and to upgrade your meal, you can borrow a trick that restaurants employ by using some unexpected ingredients. A standard fruit salad is made of cut strawberry, kiwi, orange slices, and more, perhaps drenched in citrus juice or sweetener. It's not the kind of dish you think about recipes for, but restaurants know what fruits pair best with and compliment each other. Fruit salads can be composed as well as any vegetable salad, and one secret weapon you ought to use to upgrade your homemade recipe is pomegranate seeds.

To help us think about just how to use pomegranate seeds in our fruit salads, we reached out to Chef Alex Guarnaschelli from Clara Restaurant. "I love the texture and the pleasant acidity," she explains. "When they are ripe and juicy, they add even more tartness and fruity notes." In particular, she reveals that pomegranate seeds are a great way to "lift up other more bland utility-player fruits," thus further enhancing the dish.

Like a squeeze of lemon, bright pomegranate seeds don't just taste good on their own; they bring out a more intense flavor from the other ingredients around them. Boasting some mild, bitter astringency, the seeds also add extra depth and balance out the taste of the sweeter, more intense fruits. Finally, this chef-approved addition offers a pleasant crunch, adding texture to a more uniform fruit salad.

While pomegranate seeds would be welcome in almost any fruit salad, we asked Guarnaschelli what fruits specifically she would recommend pairing them with. "Cantaloupe. Persimmon. Papaya. Mango," she reveals. "These fruits are sweet and almost custardy in texture. Great contrast to pomegranate." Other creamy-textured fruits like peaches and kiwi are also solid picks. In general, pomegranate seeds are particularly well paired with mild fruits, like a pear or banana.

The more earthy, light flavor of herbs is another nice way to add some complexity to fruit salad, and those fresh flavors will blend perfectly with pomegranate. Considering Guarnaschelli's advice for using melons, our mint and melon fruit salad recipe would be a great place to start. Some chile powder or spices like Tajin may also go nicely with pomegranate, bringing a fun little bite to fruit salad. Alternatively, try a salty upgrade with crumbled feta or goat cheese, both classic companions to pomegranate seeds.

Finally, the acidic punch of pomegranate is great for cutting through creamier recipes. Using whipped cream or yogurt is nice for a richer, more indulgent fruit salad. Both the taste and texture of pomegranate seeds are a great contrasting addition. If you consider an old-fashioned ambrosia salad a fruit salad, that's another wonderful candidate to make fancy as well. It may be a small addition, but pomegranate seeds offer big possibilities. If you're willing to go beyond salad, they ever work wonders on grilled cheese.