Watermelon Salad with Herbed Yogurt Sauce
This watermelon salad recipe is SO delicious and refreshing! It features ripe cubed watermelon over mint-basil yogurt sauce, with cucumber and fresh herbs.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on September 3, 2024
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This recipe’s title doesn’t do this beauty justice. Look at it! This watermelon salad recipe is a showstopper, if I can say so myself.
This salad starts with a base of cold, creamy herbed yogurt sauce. Then, we top it with cubed ripe watermelon, followed by crisp cucumber, lightly pickled shallot, and more fresh basil and mint.
Each element is so simple to prepare, and the end result is spectacular.
Watermelon is perfectly red and juicy this time of year, so please make this salad while you still can. It would be the perfect salad to bring to your weekend get-together.
This salad is best consumed within a couple hours of assembly. I bet your friends will be up for the challenge! Got your watermelon yet?
Watermelon Salad Ingredients
Watermelon
Only good, ripe watermelon will do. To reiterate: lousy watermelon makes lousy watermelon salad. You’ll need about half of a small watermelon for this recipe, and you’ll find ideas for the leftovers below.
Greek yogurt
Creamy Greek yogurt is the perfect hefty base for this salad. We’ll blend herbs, and a little olive oil and honey into it. Easy! If you don’t have a food processor, just chop the herbs finely and stir the ingredients together.
Fresh mint and basil
You could use one or the other, but the combination of mint and basil is so refreshing. We’ll blend these fresh herbs into the yogurt, and garnish the salad with a handful of extra herbs.
Cucumber
Cucumber offers a crisp element to this salad. I love using mini (Persian) cucumbers, since they are the perfectly bite-sized. You can also use a small cucumber—if it’s really seedy in the center, cut it in half and scoop out the seeds before slicing.
Shallot
Watermelon is sweet, and savory shallots help balance the flavors. To temper their sharp flavor and texture, we’re going to lightly pickle and chill them. You’ll simply toss the sliced shallots in some vinegar (sherry or red wine) and salt, and place the bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
How to Make This Watermelon Salad
The problem with most watermelon salads is that the second you start tossing juicy watermelon with salt, it breaks down. I bypassed that issue with this layered salad concept. Here’s how it goes down:
Slice your watermelon, cucumber and shallot.
You’ll simply cut the watermelon flesh into small cubes, and thinly slice the cucumber and shallot. See photos for visuals.
Lightly pickle the shallots.
Stir some vinegar and salt into the sliced shallots, and let them chill in the refrigerator while you prepare the remaining ingredients.
Blend the herb sauce.
Combine yogurt, fresh herbs, olive oil, honey and a pinch of salt in a food processor. Blend until it’s smooth and pale green.
Assemble the salad.
You’ll need to do this on a large serving platter, so we have a large surface area to spread the yogurt across. Swirl yogurt all over the base, then top it with the watermelon, cucumber, shallots and vinegar, and a smattering of fresh herbs, salt and pepper. Enjoy.
Extra watermelon? Make watermelon juice, spicy watermelon margaritas, or watermelon sangria! You’ll also enjoy my arugula & watermelon salad with feta and olives.
Please let me know how this recipe turns out for you in the comments! I love hearing from you.
Watermelon Salad with Herbed Yogurt Sauce
This watermelon salad recipe is so delicious and refreshing! It features cubed ripe watermelon over mint-basil yogurt sauce, with cucumber, shallot and fresh herbs. Recipe yields 6 to 8 side servings.
Ingredients
Watermelon salad
- 3 pounds ripe seedless watermelon (about ½ small round watermelon or 4 cups cubed), cut into ¾″ cubes
- 2 mini cucumbers or 1 small cucumber, thinly sliced into rounds
- ½ cup thinly sliced shallot (1 medium-to-large shallot)
- 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Small handful fresh mint and basil leaves, torn if large, for garnish
- Flaky sea salt or kosher salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Herbed yogurt sauce
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- ⅓ cup lightly packed combination of fresh basil and fresh mint leaves
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup
- Pinch of fine sea salt
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine the sliced shallot with the vinegar and ¼ teaspoon salt. Toss to combine, and place in the refrigerator to lightly pickle while you prepare the rest of the salad.
- Make the yogurt sauce: In a food processor, combine the yogurt, fresh herbs, olive oil, honey, and a pinch of salt. Blend until the herbs are broken into tiny pieces and the sauce is pale green. (If you don’t have a food processor, finely chop the herbs and whisk the ingredients together in a bowl.)
- Swirl the yogurt sauce (all of it) over the base of a large serving platter. Scatter the cubed watermelon on top, followed by the cucumber. Arrange the pickled shallot on top, and spoon the leftover vinegar over the salad.
- Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil on top, sprinkle generously with fresh herbs, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. If you won’t be serving immediately, place the salad in the refrigerator to stay chilled. This salad is best served within an hour or two.
Notes
Make it dairy free/vegan: Substitute your favorite thick, dairy-free plain (unsweetened) yogurt for the Greek yogurt. Cashew-based sour cream might work, too, as long as you aren’t avoiding nuts. To make the salad vegan, use maple syrup instead of honey.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
The watermelon salad looks awesome and sounds delicious! I will definitely want to make this one! Thanks for posting it! :-)
You’re welcome, Linda! Let me know what you think when you try it.
This looks amazing! I can’t wait to try it!
Thank you, Paige!
OMG! Here in New Zealand it’s the first day of spring tomorrow, and I’m enthusiastically bookmarking this and dreaming of watermelon:).
Let me know what you think, Sasha!
Finally remembered this!:) We had it on Christmas Day along with your Herbed Potato Salad and your mixed tomato salad. (OMG, the herbed potatoes! I will be making them all summer. So nice to have a potato salad without mayo.) The watermelon salad was delicious, especially the herbed yogurt, and it looked elegant, but I did find that putting it at the bottom meant that the yogurt was immediately diluted by the watermelon juice and vinegar. I’m going to make it again with the other half of the watermelon, and this time serve the yogurt separately and spoon it on. As with so many of your recipes, simple to do but far more than the sum of its parts!
Thank you for sharing! I’m glad both were a hit. I appreciate your review, Sasha.
Made it this evening right after you posted; wonderful, easy.
Thanks for your review, Stefanie!
Kate, this salad looks SO tasty! I love watermelon and cucumber together–they are both watery so maybe that’s why they pair so well. The yogurt sauce and shallots sound like the perfect upscale touch. Can’t wait to try!
I agree! A very nice combination. I hope you love it!
Easy and delicious!
Thank you, Julie!
Wonderful refreshing summer lunch. I used an English cucumber. I was surprised how much I liked the pickled shallots. I’ll make again as long as watermelon is in season.
I think it helps mellow them a bit and adds a nice different flavor and texture! Thanks for your review, Allison!
I followed the recipe and it was great. I wouldn’t change a thing!
Thanks, Nancy!
I made this for a dinner party and it was a huge hit! Perfect blend of sweet and savory.
I’m glad you loved it, Anna!
Excellent! Definitely a keeper! I used nonfat Greek yogurt. Delicious, easy, and pretty!
I’m excited you loved it, Mary! Thanks for trying it!
Really delicious! A perfect and easy dish for a hot summer evening.
We had it tonight- perfect hot weather salad. The green yoghurt sauce made the dish pop!
This is definitely one of those glorious summer salads where the dish is only as good as your ingredients. That being said – OH.MY.GOD. – I made it and it was out-of-this-world tasty. Even my picky boyfriend who claims he doesn’t like mint (except in mojitos, of course) liked this dish!
I was making this for two so I assembled half of the ingredients. I used a pickling cucumber and fresh mint from my garden and also homemade greek yogurt. The cool, creamy dressing left on the plate after demolishing the salad was perfect to sop up with honey-sriracha tofu.
Thank you, Kate!
Love love love your recipes and your blog!!
I made the watermelon salad tonight – 1st time – for a family birthday party! It was delicious! It was awesome! loved it! and my family loved it too! :-)
This was delicious! My only mistake was using plain yogurt instead of Greek yogurt. I didn’t realize the difference. It was a hit at dinner and my son-in-law said “this recipe is a keeper”. I was shocked at the different ingredients but they blend together beautifully! Thanks
This was SUPER good. Can’t wait to make this for a summer get-together! Didn’t change a thing in the recipe. Thanks much! I think I’ve made most of your salad recipes! Love them all!
Ate tonight. Tastes as good as it is beautiful.
Excellent! I didn’t have fresh basil and only worked with mint. The tip on when the yogurt sauce should be pale green is spot on for flavor. It was a real hit!
I didn’t have mint or basil, so I used parsley and coriander (didn’t even bother to blend it up or chop…) and it turned out delicious!! Thank you!
I LOVE watermelon! I’ve been eating it this year like I’ll never get it again. Always looking for other ways to get it on the table! :) This recipe was excellent; very refreshing! My husband and I loved the combination of flavors and textures.
Great Receipe! Very refreshing!
Thank you for your review, VG!
I love watermelons, now that’s an interesting salad recipe! Will be trying it as soon as watermelons get back in season or maybe with the other green melon.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe:)
You’re welcome, Elna! I hope you love it.
Absolutely amazing! Paired with fajitas one night and it was an awesome refreshing dish to go with the spicy main. This will be my go to watermelon salad. It looks beautiful on the table as well! I did make sure to add salt just before serving as the salt draws out the water in the melon. I used fleur de sel!
I like you combination, Christa! Thank you for sharing.
I just made this for me and my brother- it was delicious and light and fun. Thanks a lot. I will definitely make it again. The yogurt was a bit runny, I think I need a firmer Greek yogurt. Great recipe- a perfect celebration of watermelon. And I really felt I was eating very seasonally which is nice.
This is a beautiful and delicious salad as are all salads from Cookie and Kate. I wonder if you can advise me on what may have happened with the yogurt dressing. I used all ingredients as listed (usual for me).I used a blender instead of my processor and it was extremely watery – no way to smear it on the platter and build salad on top. I drizzled it on and it tasted great – my guests wondered if dressing was even needed as the salad ingredients were so bright and fresh tasting. I’d still make this again but appreciate your feedback.
Hi Cathy, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you use a fully fat greek yogurt?
Yes, full fat. I wondered if the blender was the issue.
That may be. I hope you try it again.
Made this tonight for dinner. My husband said, “This is… delicious!” I wasn’t sure I would like it, but the combination of flavors was just right and wonderfully refreshing on this 80+ day here in the PNW.
Thank you for a great recipe!
You’re welcome, TH! Thank you for your review.
Tried this for dinner yesterday. Great recipe! I used dry mint. Going to try again with fresh basil and mint. Thank you so much!
You’re welcome! I’m glad you loved it.
Kate, you never let me down! This recipe was a WINNER and will be on repeat all summer long. The combination of flavors are spectacular. How do you do it?!
– Nancy from Portland, OR
Thank you, Nancy! I’m glad you loved it.
So tasty! Next time, I’ll try the suggestion by one reviewer to spoon the yogurt sauce over individual servings so it doesn’t get diluted so quickly by the watermelon juices. (though this was not an impediment – it was gobbled up quickly!)
I made this salad to take to a gathering of friends. Mind you these were some serious barbecue eating folks! First, people were fascinated as they watched me make it. Even the guys were “what is that?” Short version, it was the hit of the evening. Not a DROP was left! Everybody wanted the recipe:). I substituted coconut Greek yogurt to eliminate the dairy and it worked perfectly. I didn’t have Persian cucumbers so I sliced the English cucumbers super thing. I had to adjust the basil and mint in the dressing to give it a little more umph—I also added the juice of a lime to bring it all together. I’ll be making this one again! Today!! (Lol). Thanks!
I’m making the watermelon salad for a get together this evening with foodies. I’m sure it will be a hit
I hope everyone loved it, Jayne! Thank you for sharing.
Oh My Goodness!!! I made the salad for a 4th of July dinner with foodies. It was beyond 10 and everyone had seconds.
I made this salad for a small gathering of women on Friday. Everyone loved it! It was easy to assemble and was very refreshing.
Wonderful to hear, Fran!
This recipe was delicious and I will be making it again.
Great to hear, Merri!
I tasted the dressing just after I made it. Not impressed. I tasted the shallots after adding the vinegar & salt. Again, not impressed. But when it all came together- MAGIC! I kept the ingredients separate since it is just me. Cannot wait for lunch today…leftovers! The salad does start to get watery so I agree that combining then serving is best. Thanks Kathryn!