You're Throwing Out the Best Part of the Watermelon

Juicy, sweet watermelon is one of summer’s best gifts. Buying it pre-cut in cubes is the quickest way to get it from the market into your mouth, but it’s significantly more expensive than buying a whole watermelon and cutting it yourself. But then there’s the issue of the rind. 

What do you do with a pile of rinds? If you have a kitchen composter or an outdoor compost pile, you can compost them. You can throw it in the trash, but putting fresh rinds in the outside garbage cans in the summer heat can create smelly, critter-inviting conditions. 

There is an excellent waste-free alternative for your rinds, though. Eat them! The rinds are edible and nutritious. They’re full of fiber. Some people think the rinds are the best part of the watermelon. They’re also incredibly versatile.

Can You Eat the Raw Watermelon Rind?

Chowing down on the green rind won’t hurt you, but it’s not very palatable. Usually, the rind—which includes the green outer thick skin and the connected white part—is prepared in some way to soften it up and add additional flavor. 

Pickling Watermelon Rinds

One of the easiest ways to prepare watermelon rinds is to pickle them. This Japanese Pickled Watermelon Rind recipe couldn’t be more straightforward. Cover sliced pieces of watermelon in a solution of apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and sugar in a Mason jar and refrigerate overnight. You can eat them right out of the jar, and they also make an unexpected side dish for simply prepared rice or a stir-fry.

Pickling the whites of watermelon rinds so they taste like candy is a little more work and takes more time (most of it is hands-off), but worth it. This Watermelon Rind Candy recipe adds sugar, cloves, and cinnamon to the mix and sits for 10 days before diving it into whopping 100 servings of the sweet treat. You then use a hot water bath to can the rinds. Grandma’s Pickled Watermelon Rind is a sweet treat too, but it’s ready sooner—in just over 8 hours. It’s also kept in the refrigerator so there’s no need for canning in a hot water bath. 

Other Culinary Uses for Watermelon Rinds

Blend small, cut-up pieces of watermelon rinds into smoothies, substitute the rinds for cucumbers in gazpacho, add slices to slaw, or grate the rinds and swap them for grated carrots in carrot cake (which will then become watermelon rind cake). 

Those ideas come from the Watermelon Board which also recommends adding slices to the veggies in a stir-fry. 

If you’re now sold on adding watermelon rinds to your cooking, your adventurous culinary taste buds are ready to move on to your next edible peel—fried banana peel strips!