Grown Up Fruit Salad

The best way to eat fruit is by mixing it with herbs, in my opinion. Apples with rosemary, cherries with sage, and strawberries with basil. I have a recipe for every kind of fruit/herb mixture you can think of!

For Mother's Day, I drove up to the beautiful North Carolina mountains to visit my parents. My mom and I went to the local farmer's market and loaded up on all kinds of produce for a special Mother's Day meal. Since strawberries are in season right now, I decided to make one of our favorite fruit salad combinations.

When warm weather arrives, I can always count on a bursting herb garden in my back yard. Since I learned all of my culinary tricks from my mother, she usually has a wide array of herbs to choose from in her garden as well. With the local strawberries and newly arrived basil, I had everything I needed for the salad....well, almost!

So, let's take this one step further and add liquor! Yes, fruit + herbs + liquor = HEAVEN. I personally love Grand Marnier the best, but any orange liqueur would work for this fruit salad. If you are not a drinker or making this for little ones, just use freshly squeezed orange juice instead.

I used strawberries, blueberries and kiwi for this salad, but any fruit will do. Just find what looks the freshest and ripest.

Fruit and herbs are such a surprisingly famous combination of flavors. I strongly urge my readers to play around with different combinations and send any new suggestions my way! 

But for now, I am happy to share my "Grown up Fruit Salad!"

Grown Up Fruit Salad

Yields: 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes 

3 cups fruit (mixture of strawberries, blueberries, kiwi, blackberries, pineapple or mango, etc)
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier liqueur (or other orange liqueur)
1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
3 tablespoons strawberry puree (optional)

Slice the fruit to similar sizes and place in a medium bowl. Add in the liqueur, basil and puree (if using). Mix the fruit until well blended and set aside until ready to eat. The salad is great after marinating for 30 minutes to an hour, but can be served right away also.