Fruit Salad with Limoncello and Yogurt Sauce

Is it just me, or is strawberry season far too short? It’s an especially short season for locally-grown strawberries in Austin. We’ve been getting pints of them in our CSA from Farmhouse Delivery, and I’ve been buying them at farmers’ markets. Just yesterday, when I bought some at Boggy Creek Farm, I worried they might be the last of the local season. Yes, I worry over strawberries. I worry over homegrown lemons too and how to best use them, and that could be why I decided to combine the two in a dessert. This fruit salad is from Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, and the recipe is also available online. Fresh berries were mixed with limoncello and topped with a yogurt sauce made with lemon curd.

The recipe actually suggests using purchased lemon curd, but I had a last bit of frozen meyer lemon juice, so I made my own lemon curd. I also still had some of the limoncello I made earlier in the year. The lemon curd was whisked into some Greek yogurt along with honey and vanilla. For the salad, I used only strawberries and raspberries rather than the recommended mix of berries and bananas. The berries were tossed with a pinch of sugar and a few tablespoons of limoncello and allowed to sit at room temperature for five minutes or so. The macerated fruit was topped with the yogurt sauce and chopped mint.

I don’t think I’d ever tried limoncello with strawberries before, but it’s a combination that’s very worth remembering. In fact, I see a cocktail created with strawberry juice and limoncello in my future. And, the lemony, tangy yogurt sauce made the dessert more special than you would expect a fruit salad to be. I may not have much time left to repeat this dessert with local strawberries this year, but I might try it again when blackberries make an appearance.