You may no longer be able to head to your favorite apple orchard in town, and the blueberry bushes in your backyard may be covered in snow, but you can still find fresh fruits in your favorite grocery store, as winter fruits come into season just in time to brighten things up (and give you a much-needed dose of vitamin C!).
Here are the 5 must-try winter citrus fruits you need to add to your grocery cart this winter.
Meyer Lemons
Meyer lemons aren’t truly full lemons. They’re actually lemon-orange hybrids, which is what gives the lemons their sweet leanings. If you’ve only enjoyed Meyer lemons in marmalades or curds, now’s the perfect time to try them raw and sliced into a salad, or in a tasty baking project, like a Meyer lemon olive oil cake or ricotta lemon bars.
Blood Oranges
Blood oranges aren’t just delicious. They’re also incredibly gorgeous, making a show-stopping addition to your favorite salads and atop baked goods. Plus, if you’re not a fan of a classic orange due to its high acidity, you may find that blood oranges strike just the right balance.
Throw your segmented blood oranges on a kale salad with avocado and pine nuts, or a spinach salad with pistachios and a dressing made from yogurt and maple syrup (edible flowers optional). You can also incorporate them into baking projects like a blood orange meringue pie.
Kumquats
Kumquats are, in a word, adorable. They look like tiny little shrunken citrus fruits. They’re sweet-tart in all the right ways and you can even eat the skin, so there’s no pesky peeling involved.
While you can serve them sliced on any salad that welcomes citrus notes, consider candying kumquats for a delightful treat that can be eaten alone or used as a garnish for everything from salads to cakes to cocktails, or turn them into marmalade.
Grapefruit
While the grapefruit might not get quite as much love as the orange, if you’ve yet to add this citrus to your grocery rotation, now’s the time. Grapefruit are incredibly versatile, but we particularly like them in a salad. Try them in a salad paired with endive, kale, smoked salmon, and avocado, or go simpler, with this salad that pairs the grapefruit just with sliced red onion, rice vinegar, coarse sea salt, olives, and olive oil.
Cara Cara Navel Oranges
Sometimes just called Cara Cara oranges, this citrus variety offers a fun pink hue on the inside, but it’s sweeter than a grapefruit, with berry-like flavor notes. It’s the perfect addition to recipes like this navel orange cardamom curd, which will look impressive when you serve it at brunch on the weekend but is, in reality, oh-so-easy to make.
