Honey Is A Foolproof Way Of Keeping Fruit Salads Fresh This Summer

With a vibrant array of colors and delicious seasonal juices, fruit salad serves as the perfect side dish for your next summer barbecue. Besides chowing down on cheeseburgers and potato salad, enjoying a fresh helping of fruit will provide your body not only with added hydration but essential nutrients such as fiber and vitamin C.

While fruit salad has innumerable health benefits and appeals in more than one way to our human senses, keeping chopped, colorful produce fresh for an extended period of time can prove to be a tad challenging. Even though whole fruits can range in longevity, sliced or chopped fruit will spoil more quickly. 

If you're looking for an extra sweet way to keep your freshly prepared fruit salad bright and crisp, consider adding a bit of honey. Due to its high sugar content, honey behaves like a preservative by extracting excess water from foods through osmosis. This process not only helps keep your fruit salad fresh, but one 2020 study suggests honey also has numerous antimicrobial properties: This thick, golden sweetener can actually ward off potential bacteria in some of your favorite foods. Now that you know the potential benefits of adding honey to your fruit salad, how can you successfully add this amber syrup to your next bowl of juicy produce to prolong its short-term lifespan?

If you're wondering how to incorporate honey into your next batch of very vanilla fruit salad, the process turns out to be quite simple. To keep your fresh fruit salad from changing color or potentially losing its tender bite, add some honey and warm water to a large mixing bowl and stir together until the honey completely dissolves. Next, submerge your fruit salad completely in the honey water, let your fruit soak for half a minute, and then drain. From here, all you need to do is scoop your honey-kissed fruit salad into a resealable container and store this freshly preserved salad in your refrigerator until you're ready to serve.

In addition to using honey as a preservative, if you'd also like to use this natural sweetener as a flavor booster, you can incorporate nature's syrup into a sweet dressing of sorts and drizzle the mixture over your final dish for an extra burst of flavor. To do this, mix your favorite fruits together then add a combination of honey and your favorite citrus such as lemon or lime, and pour directly over your fruit salad. Citrus juice is highly acidic which will further prevent the growth of any potential bacteria and slow discoloration. Now that you know what ingredients work to preserve your fruit salad, is there anything else you can do to keep your colorful bowl of fruit fresh?

Whether you're making a medley of citrus fruit with fresh mint or simply want a bowl of chopped colorful produce with no restrictions, there are a few additional things to keep in mind. When choosing fruit, always pick in-season varieties with a bit more structure to prevent a mushy fruit platter. If you need to prepare your fruit salad a day in advance, only chop the sturdier varieties like cantaloupe or honeydew and save the softer fruits like berries or stone fruits until the last minute.

In order to make sure your fruit salad doesn't become too juicy, while preparing, place each chopped variety in a colander to drain off juices before storing the prepared mixture in a resealable container in your refrigerator. 

If you're looking for another creative method of keeping your fruit salad fresh, try adding a small amount of frozen fruit to your colorful assortment. By using some frozen fruit instead of fresh, your fruit salad will stay cooler longer, especially if kept out at room temperature for a small amount of time. When prepared using honey — along with these other easy methods — chopped fruit salad will last a few days when stored properly. So if you want to make sure the flavors and textures of your chosen fruits stay lively and fresh, try adding some honey.