Perfect Summer Fruit Salad

I made this yesterday and it was the talk of the party. EVERYONE loved it. I did not change a thing. One change - I did not layer it but mixed it all together and it was so beautiful, mixed together. The syrup was great too. There were about 70 people at the Picnic and people kept coming back for more. I made it bigger than called for and it still went faster than anything else. A definite keeper!!! Wish I could give it more stars. I acutally cut up everything the night before except the banana, and even made the sauce the night before too. Then a few hous before I served it I tossed it together, then cut and added the banana. YUMMY

Absolutely wonderful! I made no changes or substitutions. I did use organic fruit and green seedless grapes. We ate every bite of this fruit salad. I think this would be great with cubed melon and either raspberries and blackberries, too.

Excellent recipe! Be careful not to cook the sauce too long on the higher heat because it will be too thick to mix into the fruit. I put this with just fresh pineapple, strawberries and blackberries and it was delicious!

I served this salad yesterday at a luncheon with girlfriends. It was the most beautiful, delicious fruit salad I have ever served. I followed the recipe exactly. I cut up all of the fruit the night before and made the sauce and poured over and let it marinate in the fridge overnight. I added the bananas the following morning about 3 hours before my event. The fruit salad is absolutely bright and beautiful and it tasted so, so good. This is a keeper for sure and I recommend it to all of you!!!!! PERFECT in every way.

Way too sweet. Does not need the brown sugar or vanilla. The fruit is sweet enough & has plenty of flavor on it's own.

Wow! This really is a "Perfect" Summer Fruit Salad! It's bursting with a ton of virbrant colors and flavors! It's not only pretty to look at, but it tastes wonderful and is good for you too. A terrific blend all your summer favorites -serve nice and chilled! This recipe definitely doesn't disappoint.

This is a really solid go-to fruit salad. I prepared it for Thanksgiving. It would work just as well for summer picnics. One cautionary note: I added some raspberries, which don't hold up well. In fact, they fall apart. So if you make your own choices about fruit, avoid raspberries.

very good way to jazz up a simple fresh fruit salad without making it unhealthy. I added fresh lime juice and lime zest also. I took the advise of another recipe and sprinkled some cinnamon in the sauce.

I rate this a 5 for these virtues: 1) Flexibility: I've been able to make substitutions and leave out ingredients I have, no problem. 2) Beauty: It's a really attractive salad that keeps it's color due, I would guess, to the citric acid and sugar (in our case, honey). 3) Ability to make ahead of time. Together they've made this a staple of our summers.

Made this for a party and came home with none. It was wonderful!!!

This is so good! My grocery store was disappointingly low on fresh fruit so the salad only had mango, pineapple, red grapes, and kiwi, but it was great anyway. I didn't want a creamy or strong tasting dressing for the salad since we love the fruits as they are and this one was perfect. It added a bit of sweetness and flavor, we especially enjoyed the vanilla (and I'm not normally much of a vanilla fan). I will definitely make this again.

Great fruit salad! The sauce was enough to dress up the salad without adding a ton of extra calories. I took this to a party and everyone thought it was very good. I will definitely be making this agian.

This is terrific. Used the fruits I had on hand (pears, grapes, blackberries, oranges, bananas, strawberries) and followed the recipe exactly. Yum! We are making this for the 2nd time within a week.

This was delicious! Very light so you can really taste the fruit. The sauce is a great compliment with the citrus and vanilla flavors. I will be making this again for sure. My only note: It needs to be eaten the same day, we had leftovers overnight in our fridge and the fruit was quite soggy and not appetizing.

Absolutely DELICIOUS! Don't taste test until until everything has been marinating. If you taste the sauce without the fruit it will come across as a little bitter and really not the true flavor of the dish. You'll just have to trust us. Served it to company & everyone loved it. I didn't use the Kiwi or blueberries and added extra banannas. So you can customize this to your favorite fruits. I also mixed it altogether like others suggested. I have a small frig so I couldn't marinate in a trifle bowl.

I soaked the banana slices in pineapple juice to keep them from turning brown. I didn't have fresh lemons so used bottled juice and halved the amount of lemon zest and used dried. Used watermelon and no pineapple or kiwi. Salad looked as good as it tasted! Best fruit salad I have ever eaten. Everyone enjoyed it.

This made a beautiful & refreshing fruit salad, but my sauce didn't thicken up at all and my fruit ended up swimming in a pool at the bottom of my bowl. I drained some of the sauce out before serving (I did let it sit in the sauce until serving so it could soak up the flavors).

We served this for a golf outing and it was wonderful! It looked great when it was made and still looked beautiful the next day when we served it. We didn't follow the fruit list exactly and it still turned out well!

This was fantastic fruit salad. The sauce was just exactly what I had been looking for, light, sweet and extra tasty. I used pineapple juice along with the orange and lemon juices. I forgot the vanilla so did not get it in at all. I also added a 1/4 tsp of mint just because I love it. Even my husband who is not a big fruit lover enjoyed this and asked for it for dessert the next night. Thank you for posting this.

Delicious! Buy VERY expensive. I think this cost me around $35!

Made no changes to the recipe. Ah, I guess I did make one. I first soaked the bananas in the cooled sauce to keep them from turning brown and then mixed everything together instead of layering. This will be my go to summer fruit salad from now on.

Although this was good I thought there was a little too much of a vanilla taste and next time I make it I will cut back and add it a little at a time until I find the right amount for our taste.

I didn't have any bananas or pineapple on hand, so I used red raspberries and blackberries instead. I also used two cans of drained mandarin orange segments in place of the fresh orange. Also, taking the advice of some of the other reviewers, I cut the OJ/brown sugar/lemon juice/vanilla in half. My fruit was all very ripe, so I didn't think it would need much sweetening up. This was perfect and a hit with my BBQ guests.

Sorry, but this just wasn't right . . . followed the recipe exactly, and the "sauce" never did thicken. I kept it anyway, refrigerated it (hoping it would thicken, but it didn't) and tossed it with some seasonal fruits. It was okay, but so not worth the trouble of making the syrup.

yummy best fruit salad I have tried will make again

My whole family found this very tart despite the brown sugar in it.

Normally I don't love fruit salad but this was pretty good. I personally don't LOVE the tartness of it but the sauce helped cut down on that. This would be great paired with some cottage cheese.

Besides the unnecessarily sweet, brown sugar syrup concoction ... I see one more big improvement this recipe could benefit from. I always used to use lemon in my fruit salads and never realized how unpleasantly sour it made the otherwise naturally sweet fruit taste. I knew it needed an acid to prevent the fruit from going bad prematurely, but it wasn't until my discovery of the distinctly Latin American influence of using limes almost to the exclusion of our invariable use of lemon for every single purpose (don't get me wrong, I LOVE lemon flavor when used appropriately like in lemon meringue pie, lemon curd, lemon cake/cookies/bars, etc etc.). But for this recipe the only citrus fruit ever needed to add a distinctively refreshing acidity, w/o the accompanying "sour", are LIMES! No orange juice, and definitely NO LEMONS! So go ahead and try it; put down the inevitable lemon, and squeeze a couple of limes with just a touch of plain old granulated sugar and i guarantee you not one of you reading this review will EVER go back to lemons in your fruit salad again. And your guest will surely notice the subtle "je ne sais quois" fl;avor you imparted to those deliciously ripe and sweet summer fruit you'v epicked up from your local market.

This turned out really good. I didn't have orange or lemon zest and didn't have oranges plus forgot the banana. I think if I had all of these it would have been better. Either way it would/was very good. I will make again. Oh yeah, I did add honey dew melon and that soaked up the sauce and tasted really good.

I prepared this for a Hawaiian theme sweet 16 party and it was a HIT!!! It looked gorgeous and colorful. I replaced the kiwi for the honey dew and it worked really well. I also eliminated some of the sauce but let it simmer while it was in the refrigerator getting cool. I'll definetely do it again!

This salad was a hit the first time I made it! I modified the sauce by substituting honey for the sugar and it was so delicious. My husband commented that the sauce at the bottom of the bow would make a great Mai Tai mix! Will make this again and again"

Good, but not fabulous, which is just a personal preference. I don't agree that the longer the salad soaks, the better. Yes, it needs some time, but strawberries and pineapple lose their juice and become tough and flavorless after about twenty-four hours in sugar. And bananas? Not even that long and they aren't good. This would be a good dish to take to a gathering, altho I thought it was rather expensive to make. Since I'm cooking for two most of the time, this salad isn't practical for us. I followed this recipe except that I did not use the banana. My bananas were past their prime and I didn't want to risk ruining the salad with an over-ripe banana. Again this is a personal preference but I prefer fruit salads with two fruits whose flavors complement each other, with maybe the addition of a few berries or kiwi, over the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salad...but I'm the same way with tossed green salads, too. My finance rated this salad a seven. (But he is a nut for fruits.) (06.12.11; 03.12.17)

Did I do something wrong? I found this to be way way way too sweet and detract from the fruits. Not a fan.

Made this for a family picnic. huge hit. the sauce is what made the difference. As many reviews stated, the sauce did not thicken and that is important so you don't have a "pool" of sauce at the bottom of your dish . To thicken it, I took a small amount of corn starch in a cup, added a little sauce, stirred it so no lumps and then added that to the sauce in the pan and it thickened perfectly. Did not alter the taste of the sauce at all. I did not use all of the sauce but just enough to coat the fruit. We also had to travel 2 hours so I added the sauce just before leaving and that was enough time to absorb the flavor of the sauce in the fruit. I added the bananas and apples just before serving.

Great recipe! Made this with kiwis, mangoes, strawberries and bananas. Will definitely make again.

Delish with just the right amount of sweetness without over-doing it. Will make again and again.

It was a big hit. Very yummy!

YUM! I was worried about the sauce; it didn't thicken much and was brownish - not too appetizing, right?Perfect sweetness in the sauce, however. Made it at noon for a late dinner party and the fruit kept its color and texture. Maybe it helped that I didn't stir it together until the party?

This salad looks gorgeous and tastes gorgeous! Loved it!

Fantastic! I followed the recipe exactly as is and it was a hit. I've been asked to make it for just about every get-together. Thanks!

Unreal. Always wanted to find a fruit salad that used a clear, citrusy-sauce to toss the fruit in. And this is it. Did not follow the recipe when it came to the fruits in the salad, since I'm living in Asia and have my own favorite fruits available throughout the year. The sauce, though, oh this sauce. The perfect blend of orange, lemon and vanilla - with a hint of sweetness. It brought out the fruit flavor and made it smell heavenly. Will - and already have - recommend it to cooks around the globe.

Very tasty. Kept for 3 days (no longer tho). The sauce never got thick for me, but it still tasted great.

I cheated and used store bought lemonade and orange juice. I added brown sugar and the vanilla and brought to a boil. It never really thickened, but it kept the fruit a nice color and was still very good.

I didn't layer the fruit as suggested, so perhaps this is why I didn't like it very much. I didn't really like the flavor of the sauce with the fruit. But everyone I served it to said they liked it.

I'm always looking for a good dressing for fruit salad. This one is very tasty. Add whichever fruits you have on hand and it'll taste good!

This is a very good recipe, although expensive. I read the other reviews and alot of them state that liquid didn't thicken up, so I tried it, and it didn't thicken, so I added a little plain gelatin to the liquid. Thickened right up! I even tried it by adding a little vanilla pudding powder. Worked great and tasted great!

I didn't eat it but both of my daughters sure enjoyed this recipe.

i love fruit salads!!! yumm!!! >3

This is one of the best fresh fruit salads that I have made. I didn't add the bananas. However, I did add raspberries and blackberries.

Makes ALOT!!!

This was amazing =) i love it!

It was okay. My family didn't really touch it so much. The sweet and tart wasn't the right balance for them :(

OMG This was SO good! I could live on this stuff. Didn't change anything, followed directions exactly. We had it over two summer night meals and still had leftovers that unfortunately had to be tossed because we couldn't eat it all before it started to go bad. I will definitely be making this a lot over the summer and even during the winter too. Thanks for posting my new favorite fruit salad.

This is a great combination and looks beautiful in a glass bowl. The dressing is the best!

One of the best fruit salads I have had to date. Wonderful for summer cook outs or pot lucks. I sectioned the oranges like a grapefruit because I don't like the white fuzz but used all the other ingredients as listed. It was very delicious. This is definitely a keeper recipe.

I loved this. I took it to thanksgiving at my Hubbys parents and got rave reviews!!!

I made this for a Memorial Day picnic and it was a huge hit. I also took along an Amish-baked chocolate cake. The fruit salad was gone in no time flat. The Amish cake, sat there in shame. Lol! I was skeptical about the "sauce" ... but it really married everything nicely and kept everybody in the bowl looking and tasting fresh. 5 stars ... only because I couldn't give it more!

wonderful.. i already try this recipe and bring it to the mini party at the office today... but i mixed with the honey dew and its not very suitable. i prefer for other not really sweet fruit for this recipe.. btw.. thanks so much =)

Or you can put honey as the sweetner on any fruit salad. Wonderful on grapefruit and citrus fruit, cantalope, just all better with honey!

I would cut the liquid a bit but other than that it was good.

Everyone at the party loved it, so good!

So, so easy and so, so good!!! Had to do some more... Just use any fresh fruits in season... Love it!

Love the sauce for this fruit salad it made it taste good. Even better in frig for a few hours before serving. Really refreshing on a hot day. Thank smile4nini

The sauce is exceptional.

Loved it! I just did pineapple, strawberries, oranges, bananas & mango. Next time I'd decrease the sauce a little cause it was slightly too runny.

Fantastically fresh and simple. I left out the grapes and blueberries because there weren't any decent ones at the store. I did add cubed watermelon after the bananas and some raspberries on top to compensate. The syrup was light and dressed it up just enough to make it more than just a bowl of fruit but didn't weigh it down at all. I actually doubled the recipe for a large family party and served it layered in a "crystal" punch bowl. It was a beautiful addition to the table.

Good, but kinda sour. I liked it, but some people didn't.

Very easy and great taste. I used some different fruits in this because I didn't have the strawberries on hand but it didn't effect the over all taste at all. This is a good one to play with. I noted that some comments said the sauce didn't thicken well for them, so I reduced it over low heat a bit more knowing the juice from the fruit would thin it out some as it chilled. One thing to note...if you are using vanilla paste you might want to decrease it from one teaspoon to maybe half a teaspoon.

Yummy

I made a large bowl of the fruit salad and people were choosing it over dessert. Mmmm.

Made it for my daughters graduation party and everyone loved it, it was the first bowl empty. Only change I made was I only used half the sauce and mixed the fruit instead of layering it. Beautiful and delicious.

I made this fruit salad for our 17 senior football players during our senior supper night. I expected to have left over's but it was all gone. The sauce gave the salad just the right amount of sweetness without it tasting like it had anything on it. The sauce did not thicken but I didn't really think it would because of the ingredients used. I followed the recipe exactly and will be using it again. I made my salad 12 hours before the event and next time I will try to make it 3-4 hours prior so that the sauce doesn't get too juicy with the sauce/fruit. GREAT tasting salad but is was a little costly to make.

Refreshing! The sauce was perfect in that it kept the fruit from browning and enhanced the natural fruit flavors.

The sauce really makes it.

Absolutely love!!! Made it for a food day at work. Was a hit!!!

I was hesitant to try this on our guests for our annual BBQ since I'd never tried it. I followed the recipe exactly using splenda brown sugar and low sugar OJ. It was delicious! Had just enough left over for one serving with breakfast the next day. I know I will make this many times.

Great flavor! Very refreshing. Will be making it again!

Very easy & delicious, perfect for potlucks. The sauce enhanced the fruit, rather than overpower it like some yogurt sauces that are added to fruit.

A new family favorite. Any fruit would go well. I did not use bananas since I was afraid they would turn brown.

I made this for a cookout. We had a lot of guests so I trippled the recipe. It was awesome; There was none left after the party. The only think I changed were the oranges. Instead of regular oranges, I used Cuties.

Easier than I thought to prepare and I love the myraid of colors-very visually appealing. I substituted kiwi and mango with cantaloupe and added pomegranate seeds on top. Depending on taste you could even have it with or without the source, might be too much sugar for some people

This was a hit at a picnic. Even the kids loved it. Definitely needs to set in order for all the flavors to set in. Yum!

I was very skeptical about putting a syrup on fruit salad. I like fresh fruit plain and rarely eat sugar, so when I made this I set aside a portion of plain fruit for myself and put the syrup on the rest of the fruit for other people to have. However, dessert time came and when I opened up the container with this fruit salad, the smell of it made my mouth water. I was blown away by the taste too--absolutely addictive! I had been concerned that it would be too sweet--I think fruit is sweet enough as it is--but, thankfully this fruit salad was not too sweet for me. The syrup that the fruit marinades in cranks the flavor of the fruit up several notches. It is super important to use fresh orange juice and that the oranges by very flavorful. I think that is what made this salad so good for me. This is my new favorite dessert.

I made this for my niece's graduation party a few weeks ago and it was a major hit! It was extrememly yummy with all the fresh fruit and the juice you pour over it! This will be made again and again in our house! YUM!

Delicious! Served this fruit salad at a breakfast I had for friends. They loved it!

Super easy to make! I only used 1/2 -2/3 of the brown sugar mix. Seemed to be enough. It is sweet, but it was also offset by the different flavors of fruit.

delicious!!!!! i loved all the flavors!!! It looks so pretty too!!

Fresh, flavorful, and so easy to throw together!

I made this for Mother's Day brunch and my family LOVED it - after reading the reviews I decided that even though the amount sounded huge, leftovers would be scarce and go fast. So glad I did! I used slightly different fruits and mixed them together (instead of layering), let it sit covered in the fridge for several hours, and it was delicious. If you think fruit is sweet enough on its own this may be too sweet for you. But if you're looking for a crowd-pleasing dessert or to "trick" friends into eating healthy fruits who normally wouldn't, ;) this gets the job done without erasing the flavors of the individual fruits. Five stars.

Best fruit salad EVER!!!! I added lemon and orange extract, as I didn't have peel on hand.

It was wonderful! We took it to a barbq + everyone loved it! I didn't have any fresh oranges so I substituted frozen juice mixed w some water (1 part ea - I used apple/passion/mango) + I substituted lemon zest for the orange zest bcuz I had plenty of it

The trick to this recipe is taste, taste, taste! The negative reviews cite too tart or too sweet syrup, which indicates that you need to keep tasting as you cook to adjust. Don't just blindly follow the recipe; some fruits differ in taste, so you could have two oranges and one is sweeter than the other. Sometimes pineapple is more tart. You just have to adjust the sugar to match the fruits and juices you have! I used an orange-tropical fruit juice and added a touch of honey when my syrup was a little too tart, and this turned out wonderfully!

used 1/2 of the orange juice/lemon juice mix on the fruit with strawberries, blue berries, apricots, nectarines, cantalope, and watermelon - was going to add apples and bananas, ran out of time, still tasted awesome!

Very tasty! I followed the recipe using fruits that were fresh and available to me in January -- pineapple, cherries, blueberries, green grapes, bananas, kiwi, raspberries, tangerines, and apples. I did use freshly squeezed orange and lemon juices. I took it to a football party where it was declared a winner. Thanks for this recipe! I'm glad I made a copy of it for my files!

Made this for a family brunch. Everyone loved it and it was simple. I'm not a huge fan of sauce on fruit but loved the flavour and sauce seemed to bring the fruit all together! Will definitely make again!

I didn't care for it. The fruit didn't need anything added.

OMGoodness I have never before thought of putting vanilla or sugar in a fruit salad but what an amazing difference it made! Tasted so yummy - can't stop eating it!

i Enjoy it

I deleted the brown sugar and vanilla and added a heaping teaspoon of honey to the liquid instead. Tasted it several times along the way to see if it was sweet enough, and decided to use two packets of Splenda instead. It feeds at least 10 people and everyone liked it.