On Wednesday, I posted a recipe for watermelon Jerusalem salad, which uses an entire quart of diced watermelon. But even after making a big watermelon-heavy salad, you’re still probably going to have a lot of watermelon left over. You can certainly eat the rest as plain old wedges, but I’ve put together this bonus post for those of you who are feeling a little jaded.

Agua fresca and grilled watermelon slices require very few additional ingredients, so they’re perfect for using up leftover watermelon. Even though each recipe is made up almost entirely of watermelon, they couldn’t be more different. Agua fresca brings out the refreshing, juicy, crisp flavor of watermelon, while grilled watermelon brings out its deeper, caramelized side, making it taste a little more like cantaloupe.

grilled watermelon

Grilled watermelon hardly needs a recipe. You just lightly sweeten and salt a few wedges, throw them on the hottest grill possible, and cook them for as short a time as possible. Your goal isn’t to cook the watermelon through, but to char and caramelize the outsides, so the key is to let the grill preheat until the grates have become extremely hot before adding the watermelon. All the rotating 90 degrees nonsense is just to get the perfect grill marks for your Instagram feed, but even if you skip all the rotating, they’ll still taste just as delicious.

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Agua Fresca

Watermelon agua fresca is my absolute favorite way to use up leftover watermelon. While it’s not a Middle Eastern drink (agua fresca means fresh water in Spanish, and includes a huge assortment of lightly flavored, refreshing drinks), watermelon is a fruit that very regularly shows up in Middle Eastern cuisine, and we’re certainly no stranger to refreshing drinks.

Depending on how I’m feeling, I occasionally add a little more or less sugar than the recipe below, sometimes leaving it out altogether. If you plan to leave out the sugar, I recommend adding a tiny bit more lime juice, to taste. I normally make unfiltered agua fresca, because I love the way the seltzer and pulp whip together into a foam, sort of like a root beer float. But if you prefer a flat café au lait to a frothy cappuccino, you might want to filter the watermelon juice before adding seltzer, which will cut down on the frothiness. To do this, you can use a cheesecloth placed over a mesh strainer. You’ll lose a lot of fiber by filtering it (and besides, the foam is the best part!), but to each their own.

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