Giada De Laurentiis Explains How You Should Be Slicing A Watermelon
Watermelon is a popular choice in warmer seasons, and for good reason. The high water content makes it refreshing, and you can easily down slice after slice. There aren't many foods more tempting on a hot summer day.
According to Seed World, watermelons are the third most popular fruit in the world, with a staggering 117 million tons of the fruit produced in 2016 alone. And for budget-conscious shoppers, it's one of the most inexpensive (per pound) pieces of produce you can buy, notes What About Watermelon.
The one struggle many people have when it comes to watermelon is the question of how best to slice it. Unlike more petite produce, such as apples or pears, watermelons can grow to be quite large in their peak season. It can be challenging — and a little dangerous — to tackle the rocking, rounded fruit with a knife that isn't even long enough to cut through it. Luckily, cookbook author and culinary personality Giada De Laurentiis is here to help. While it may not be the first fruit that comes to mind when you think of Italian cuisine, watermelon is a significant part of Italian culinary culture. As Jovina Cooks Italian explains, the fruit is featured in many Italian holiday celebrations. So, it only makes sense that De Laurentiis would master the art of cutting it.
De Laurentiis' foolproof method
Giada De Laurentiis took her audience through the watermelon-slicing process in a video tutorial on the Giadzy Instagram account. One of the key parts of her process is that she doesn't start by trying to slice the entire watermelon in half, either horizontally or vertically, which is where many naturally think to begin. Instead, as she demonstrates, she slices off the top and bottom to create a flat surface on either end. This simple step immediately makes the process easier, as the watermelon isn't rocking and rolling around on the cutting board.
She opted to serve her watermelon in cube form without any peel, so her next stage was to vertically cut off all the green rind, exposing just the inner flesh of the watermelon. Then, with only the interior part of the fruit remaining (which is much easier to slice through than the tough rind), she proceeded to cut it into small pieces. If you prefer to serve watermelon in slices with the rind on, you could utilize just her tip of cutting the rounded ends of the watermelon to create a flat surface to make your task a little easier.
The Giadzy audience loved the tip, sharing their enthusiasm in the comments section. One fan wrote, "I never knew how to do this and I've been cooking for 20+ yrs!!!"