Pairing sweet, luscious melon with salty, savory elements is nothing new—it's how you do it that can make all the difference. Melon salads are ideal hot-weather fare, but they're prone to some common pitfalls: namely, watered-down dressings and garnishes that slide to the bottom of the salad bowl. Because honeydew melons vary in sweetness, we started by tasting our melon to determine how much sugar to incorporate into our dressing. To counter the abundant water contributed by the melon, we made an intense dressing with assertive ingredients such as lime juice, fish sauce, shallot, and Thai chiles, but we skipped the oil, which would only be repelled by the water on the surface of the melon. Instead we added richness with dry-roasted peanuts, which—when chopped fine—adhered to the surface of the melon pieces and held on to the dressing. To avoid watering down the dressing, we left the melon in large chunks, which freed less juice and accentuated the contrast between the well-seasoned exterior and the sweet, juicy interior.
