Albanian Watermelon Feta Salad Recipe

On the second episode of Cooking with Xhulio, we will be making the famous Albanian watermelon feta salad. To give you a little bit of history, Albanians have been making this salad for a long time. In the last couple of years, it became viral on the internet because chefs started adding herbs to it. This made the recipe better because herbs enhance the flavor of the watermelon. 

Ingredients for Albanian Watermelon Feta Salad:

• 1/4th watermelon
• 1 cup crumbled feta
• 3 small cucumbers
• fresh mint
• fresh basil
• 1 lime
• 1/5th red onion
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar

Pickle the Red Onion

To start this recipe, we are going to finely chop the red onion. After chopping the red onion, make sure to put it in a large bowl. Next we are going to squeeze one lime. After adding the lime juice, make sure to also add the red wine vinegar. What this is going to do is that it will be removing that distinct flavor of the onion so that we can let the watermelon be the main flavor. Mix them together and put the bowl aside.

Chop the Cucumbers and Watermelon

Let’s grab the cucumbers and chop them in smaller pieces. Put the cucumbers in the same bowl as well. If you don’t have small cucumbers, you may also use a large one. I prefer the smaller ones because when making watermelon feta salad the cucumbers should be crunchy and not contain a lot of water. 

After cutting the cucumbers, let’s start preparing the watermelon. Remove the skin of the watermelon and cut each slice into smaller pieces. Make sure the pieces are similar in size. They should be slightly smaller than a golf ball. Add the watermelon into the bowl and put it aside.

Prepare the herbs for Albanian Watermelon Feta Salad

It cannot be an Albanian watermelon feta salad without the herbs. Grab the basil leaves, and cut them into stripes, which is also known as chiffonade. Do the same for the mint leaves. Add both herbs to the big bowl.

For the last and final ingredient of the Albanian watermelon feta salad, we are going to be adding some feta cheese. You can pretty much use any type of feta cheese, but I prefer the barreled feta. I think that the flavor profile of the barreled feta fits this recipe best. Don’t forget to add some Olive Oil to boost the flavor.

Combine all the ingredients together and make sure to eat some for yourself first because if you serve this right away, there won’t be much left in a few seconds. Check out Cooking with Xhulio on YouTube!

Ah, almost forgot; If you are looking for another extra healthy and refreshing recipe, make sure to check out the Tabouli Salad Recipe.