The Unique, Handheld Way To Enjoy Watermelon Salads This Summer

Watermelon and fresh green salads go hand in hand with summer and the only way to make them more on-brand is to put the two together. Enter, watermelon salad. There is, however, another thing you can do to take them up to another degree on the summer spectrum and it involves a stick.

Yes, just like the grilled chicken and vegetable kebabs people like to throw on the grill that time of year, your watermelon and feta salads have the power to go completely handheld — and all they need is a skewer. It's great for summer get-togethers because it gives people the freedom to mingle and frees up a hand for drinks. Additionally, salads are quite a lot easier to eat on a stick than they are with the usual party favor plastic forks and knives.

Assemblance is about as simple as it gets, too. With all the classic fixings of a watermelon and feta salad, including sliced watermelon wedges, chunks of feta cheese, and maybe some crisp romaine leaves, onions, or cucumbers, the rule here is if it sounds good you can put it on the stick. When you see your friends in the backyard with watermelon salad sticks in one hand and summer cocktails in another, you'll be wondering why you didn't break them out sooner. The great thing about it is that there's room for interpretation.

While there are some tips that you need to follow when making watermelon and feta salad, all bets are off when the sticks come out. You don't even have to include the salad if you don't want to. That's especially true if you plan on throwing them on the grill. Gordon Ramsey is notoriously critical about grilled romaine lettuce, and while there are ways for you to pull it off, the stick might get in the way. The feta and watermelon, on the other hand, will work fabulously with a little char — stick and all. Plus, you can add fresh herbs like mint or basil, or even romaine, for a touch of green.

That said, why not amp your watermelon and feta salad sticks up with some protein? Grilled chicken would work wonderfully with the other ingredients, although you will want to grill it separately as the cooking time will be much longer than everything else. You can even make a two-for-one substitution by using tofu in place of feta cheese, which would make them a plant-based option for your vegan friends who tend to be forgotten at summer BBQs. No matter what direction you go, the salad stick is your tool for more socially constructed summer get-togethers. Use it to your advantage.