Craving sweets on a diet? Try these 3 fruit salads to satisfy your sweet tooth

Don't let your weakness for desserts thwart your diet plans. Let nature's sweetness help you with your cravings.

If you have put healthy eating on your vision board for 2025, then you probably set your sights on low-calorie salads. Salad tries to get the best of the balanced nutritional goodness: from leafy greens like spinach, kale, and lettuce, crunchy veggies like cucumbers, carrots, avocado, tomato, nuts and super seeds like walnuts and chia seeds, to proteins like tofu, hard-boiled eggs and pan-seared chicken. Even carbs like quinoa or croutons are added. Lastly, everything is tied together with tangy, citrusy dressings or regular seasonings. Salads are mostly savoury with the freshness of steamed or raw veggies and leafy greens.

Fruits are nature's sweet treats. (Shutterstock)

But what about fruits? By adding fruits you can curb your cravings. Generally when following a diet, whole fruits are consumed as a midday or evening snack and sometimes as a smoothie as well. Adding fruits to the otherwise savoury salad adds a whole new spin with natural sweetness. Salads can make fruits a whole meal. It’s time to try something new with your salad menu now. Consider these 3 fruit salad recipes.

Here are 3 salad recipes with fruit:

Citrus winter salad with oranges

Winters are incomplete without oranges. Peeling away oranges under the cold sun is pure bliss. Channel this positive energy in your salad by adding the Vitamin C-rich fruit. Along with oranges, the fruit salad also includes pomegranate and pumpkin seeds.

Shruti Mahajan shared the recipe for a tangy, sweet and sour winter salad:
Ingredients :

• Mint Leaves
• Fenugreek or methi Leaves
• Orange
• Pomegranate kernels
• Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
• Lemon
• Chaat Masala
• Black Pepper Powder
• Salt to taste

Method: Mix everything, shake and serve.

Mango chia fruit salad

Mango is the ultimate source of natural sweetness. The pulpy delight is simply decadent. This salad is a must-try for all people dieting while resisting their sweet tooth urges. Alia & Radwa Elkaffas took to Instagram to share the salad recipe that involves mango and chia.

Ingredients

• Milk
• Chia seeds
• Berries (raspberries, blueberries and blackberries)
• Maple syrup or other option is honey
• Diced mango
• Mango juice

Method:

• In a bowl, add chia seeds and milk. Pour a dash of maple syrup or honey. Stir and then let it rest for a short time in the refrigerator. This will help make the mixture thicken. It almost takes on the consistency of a pudding.
• Dice mangoes and assemble all the berries.
• In a bowl or smoothie glass, add the chia milk mixture as the base. Top with the mixed fruits.

Fresh fruit salad with sweet and sour dressing

While savoury salads with vegetables often also include dressing to enhance their flavour, fruit salads can benefit from dressing as well. This recipe by Caitlin features honey-lime poppy seed dressing that brings out all the flavours of the mixed fruits.

Ingredients:

•Strawberries

• Pineapple
• Mandarin oranges
• Kiwi
• Blueberries
• Lime juice
• Honey
• Poppy seeds

Method:

• In a bowl, add all the diced fruits.
• In another separate bowl, to make the dressing, add honey and poppy seeds to fresh lemon juice. Whisk well and pour all over the mixed fruits. Combine it well so the dressing gets evenly spread.