Fruits, by custom or habit, are used as a dessert 95% of the time in lunches and dinners. Join the other 5% of people who also include fruits in their entrées and main dishes.
It only takes reading a few pages of international cookbooks to learn how fruits can enhance almost any type of meal. For example, dried fruits, sauces, and purees made of fruit are great to serve with meat, pork, chicken, or fish dishes. Apple puree and fruit sauces, such as plum and fig, are among the most common fruit preparations. Cranberry sauce is served with turkey on Thanksgiving Day, and is therefore very popular in the United States.
Vegetarian diets include many different recipes with fruits; for example: rice croquettes with pineapple sauce, legume and rice fritters with grilled pears, and sweet peppers filled with raisins, among many others.
Many salads include fruit as one of their main ingredients. Apples, oranges, tangerines, kiwis, pineapples, pears, mangoes, and strawberries are some of the most common fruits in these recipes. The combination of fruits and vegetables is truly exquisite. Feel free to use ingredients of all kinds when making a salad, from the classic raw vegetables to legumes, pasta, potatoes, rice, and chicken.
A recent edition of one of the most traditional cookbooks from Betty Crocker’s collection presents a list of salads in which fruits are a key ingredient:
Celery and Orange Salad:Make it with a combination of light and dark-colored lettuces, celery, nuts, orange wedges, and green and black olives. Chives can also be added to this salad, and, finally, olive oil, lime juice, mustard, parsley, salt, and pepper are used to season.
Endive and Chicory Salad with Hazelnut Vinaigrette: Combine endive, red chicory, and oranges. The vinaigrette that is used to season this salad is made with toasted hazelnuts, soybean oil, sherry vinegar, and salt.
Endive Salad with Pears and Cheese: Combine endive with other types of lettuce, pears, cheese, nuts, salt, olive oil, and cider vinegar.
Citric Salad: This is similar to the previous recipe, but includes grapefruit or orange.
Tropical Fruit Salad:Includes tropical fruits, like kiwi, avocado, or mangoes, combined with lettuce, potatoes, boiled eggs, and a pink sauce.
Cabbage and Apple Salad with Yogurt:The cabbage, green apples, plain yogurt and chives are enough to make this a complete yet refreshing dish.
Lentil Salad with Apples, Celery, and Lettuce:You can make a very tempting salad out of legumes. Another option is a soybean salad with onions, celery, apples, and mozzarella cheese.
Rice and Pineapple Salad:A combination of rice, pineapple slices, apples, raisins, and endive leaves. Adding olives gives the salad a Mediterranean taste.
