Mojito Melon Prosciutto Skewers Recipe

One of the best ways to level up a charcuterie board is to thread ingredients onto skewers for petite, bite-sized hors d'oeuvres. With skewers, you can ditch the mess of a crumbly cracker, curating bites for guests to grab without even needing a plate. Skewers also present a creative way to showcase cured meats like prosciutto, and they offer the opportunity to use fruits and vegetables that you wouldn't normally find in the board format. All of this inspiration came in handy when crafting this mojito melon prosciutto skewers recipe, one that channels those charcuterie vibes all in a convenient, handheld appetizer.

Melon is arguably the star fruit of summer, making appearances in summery cocktails, desserts, side dishes, and brunches all season long. Melon's porous, watery-but-dense inner flesh allows for a myriad of creative uses like infusions, which submerge the fruit in cocktail ingredients like rum and simple syrup, as I've done in this mojito-inspired recipe. The melon absorbs the flavor (and some of the alcohol), creating a unique burst of boozy fun in every bite. By pairing mojito-infused watermelon and cantaloupe with prosciutto and cheese, you can have an all-in-one cocktail hour built on simple, easy-to-eat handheld skewers.

To start this recipe, you'll need both watermelon and cantaloupe, which you can buy as half-melons to save space in your refrigerator. You'll also need the typical ingredients for mojitos — simple syrup, mint, lime juice, and white rum — but in quantities big enough for a large infusion batch. From there, you'll need crushed pistachios, prosciutto, and goat cheese, which I recommend buying in log form for easy rolling.

Combine the rum, simple syrup, lime juice, and mint in a large bowl, jar, or container.

Add the watermelon and cantaloupe cubes and soak for 2 hours.

In the meantime, roll the goat cheese into 24 1-inch balls.

Arrange the pistachio in a small bowl, then roll each ball into the pistachio to coat.

To build the skewers, first add the goat cheese balls to the skewers, then fold a 2-inch piece of prosciutto and slide it on top of the cheese.

Drain the melon, then alternate between placing a single piece of watermelon or cantaloupe at the end of each skewer. Pierce the skewer into the melon to stand upright.

Repeat for all 24 skewers, then serve.

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It's common to carve melon into spheres using a melon baller or cookie scoop, and you can use this method if you don't need your skewers to stand up flat on the platter (instead, the skewers can be arranged laying flat across the plate). However, to create skewers that stand upright, you will need to slice the melon into uniform, flat-bottomed cubes. The easiest way to do this is to first slice the melon horizontally across, creating large ovals of flesh surrounded by rind. Slice the rind away on each side, forming a large rectangle, then slice into 1-inch strips. With the flesh cut into uniform strips, all you need is to slice across to create 1-inch squares.

You can use this same method on a quartered piece of watermelon, too. Simply slice across to create 1-inch thick triangular slices, then turn the slices and cut 1-inch strips following the horizontal edge. This easily creates 1-inch squares without wasting large amounts of melon. You can also switch up the size of your melon cubes, if you'd prefer a little more or less melon per skewer. 

When draining the melons from the mojito mixture, make sure to drain using a colander over a large bowl so that the excess mojito is reserved rather than washed down the drain. The mixture is still a perfectly drinkable mojito infused with melon flavor, and you can enjoy it as a melon-flavored mojito cocktail. Because the liquid came in contact with melon, you should treat it as a juice and store it in the refrigerator when not in use, discarding after 5 to 6 days.

Because you are likely to have leftover unused melon, you can intensify your melon-flavored mojitos by freezing the melon to use as ice cubes in the drink. This chills the cocktails while adding flavor and color. To do this, use a melon baller (or slice extra squares), place on a parchment-lined sheet tray, and freeze the melon overnight. Then, transfer to storage containers so you can pop the melons into cocktails all summer long.

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