Watermelon Salad

This is a salad built for feeding a crowd, which is why the quantities below run big: it's the kind of thing you make for a barbecue or a race day spread rather than a quiet dinner for two. Watermelon's sweetness against salty feta is the whole idea, with cucumber and quick-pickled onion keeping it from feeling one-note.

Soaking the sliced red onion in lime juice for a few minutes does two things: it takes the raw, sharp edge off the onion, and the leftover lime juice becomes the base of the dressing once everything else goes in. There's no need for a separate dressing step.

Cut the watermelon into pieces roughly the same size as the cucumber, so you get a bit of both in each mouthful rather than one dominating. A sharp knife matters more than usual here, crushed or torn watermelon releases extra juice and waters down the salad in the bowl.

Assemble this close to serving if you can. Watermelon keeps releasing liquid as it sits, salted or not, so a salad made more than an hour or two ahead ends up sitting in a pool of its own juice by the time you serve it.