This prosciutto and melon recipe makes the classic Italian appetiser of prosciutto e melone in Italian. Thin slices of Italy’s heavenly melt-in-the-mouth cured ham are wrapped around pieces of peeled rockmelon or cantaloupe to create one of the world’s best flavour combinations and a quintessential Italian snack or starter. Serve with a Caprese salad, crunchy grissini and a crisp white wine.
Are cantaloupes or rockmelons in season where you are? If you’re looking for ideas for a healthy snack, light meal or delicious melon starter for an Italian meal or Mediterranean spread, you’ll love this prosciutto and melon recipe. It makes the traditional Italian appetiser of prosciutto e melone – not hard to remember, like this super-simple, quick and easy two-ingredient recipe. If you’re after something more substantial, try this melon, mozzarella and prosciutto salad.
The match of salty dry cured ham wrapped around sweet juicy melon is one of the most sublime ingredient pairings – as addictively delicious as that other quintessential Italian coupling, the combination of luscious tomatoes and creamy buffalo mozzarella that make a classic Caprese salad. If you’re a fan, also try our Caprese pasta salad recipe.
You can serve these prosciutto-wrapped melon slices on individual plates or on a platter at the centre of the table for guests to help themselves. Follow with a bowl of pasta, the traditional Italian primo or first course – and we have loads of pasta recipes – or go straight for a secondo, a second course or main course. Try our succulent Italian roast chicken with peppers, olives and capers, this Italian-Australian chicken cacciatore, or Aussie pub favourite, a crunchy chicken parmigiana.
While prosciutto and melon is a classic starter in Italy, we’ve also helped ourselves to portions of prosciutto-wrapped melon slices on lavish breakfast buffets in grand hotels on the Italian Lakes and from generous spreads of snacks on bar counters during Milan’s famous aperitivo hour. It makes a fabulous brunch dish washed down with glasses of bubbly.
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Prosciutto and Melon Recipe for a Classic Italian Appetiser and Aperitivo Snack
If it’s winter where you are and you’re in search of apricity – that uplifting feeling that comes from the heat of winter sun – then here’s a way to warm your soul and frigid extremities: if you can source a cantaloupe and Italian charcuterie, tie back the drapes, turn up the heating, find a summery tablecloth, and plan an Italian feast that starts with a plate of prosciutto and melon.
And if you’re in the southern hemisphere, as I still am, where the scorching sticky days of summer have suddenly and inexplicably given way to a seriously chilly cold snap (I’ve been layering on the winter woollies I not long ago packed away!), and the melons, mangos, berries, and stone fruit seem strangely out of place on the supermarket shelves, then I recommend prosciutto e melone to you, too.
First documented by the legendary Pellegrino Artusi in his seminal Italian cookbook Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well or La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene, and dating to Roman times, the ancient pairing of cured meat and fruit was considered an immunity booster. Bonus! And a good excuse if you needed one to indulge in prosciutto at a time when charcuterie is getting a bad rap.
This prosciutto and melon recipe makes a popular summertime starter or antipasto in Italy. Artusi includes “melon with ham and generous wine” in a summer menu in his 1891 cookbook that’s as relevant today as it was 131 years ago. And while Italian cuisine is regional, prosciutto and melon is one of those beloved Italian appetisers that you’ll find eaten absolutely everywhere in Italy.
During summer, when cantaloupes are in season, you’ll spot melons at morning markets in every city, town and village in the shopping carts of elderly nonnas and string bags and cotton totes of eco-conscious Italians. You’ll see prosciutto e melone on the menu of almost every restaurant in the country, from Southern Italy to Northern Italy.
Prosciutto e melone was our go-to appetiser on our travels in Italy over the years – especially midsummer, eaten at an umbrella-shaded alfresco table. It’s hard to resist that tantalising contrast of sweet and salty, the fat of the prosciutto melting in the sunshine, the juice of the luscious melon dripping down our chins and wrists.
Whenever we’d rent apartments in Italy, for holidays or work, everywhere from Milan to Venice, we’d eat out for either lunch or dinner, making one meal a day ‘at home’. We’d frequently return from the local market with a melon and thinly sliced prosciutto wrapped in butcher’s paper, a tub of buffalo mozzarella in brine, a bag of vine-ripened tomatoes, and a big bunch of fresh fragrant basil, all of which would serve as a very satisfying lunch.
Just a few tips to making this prosciutto and melon recipe, as it’s so quick and easy to come together, it barely needs a recipe – unless you’re making it for the first time, of course. And I guarantee that won’t be the last!
Tips to Making this Prosciutto and Melon Recipe for a Classic Italian Appetiser
I only have a few tips to making this prosciutto and melon recipe for the classic Italian appetiser of prosciutto e melone, starting with the prosciutto.
The Prosciutto
If you don’t eat prosciutto, look for prosciutto crudo (raw cured ham) not prosciutto cotto (cooked ham) and buy the best quality prosciutto you can source and afford. Because as with all of these simple Italian dishes, they’re all about using the best quality ingredients and letting those ingredients shine.
I’ve been buying 160 g packs of Italian prosciutto, but if you’re lucky to have good delicatessen nearby, order as many pieces as you need and ask for them to be thinly sliced. If you can’t find prosciutto, a Spanish cured jamon is also wonderful.
The Melon
A traditional Italian prosciutto and melon recipe calls for cantaloupe, which we call rockmelon in Australia. I’ve also used a green honeydew melon, which also works, as long as it’s ripe, juicy and sweet.
I’ve been using one small rockmelon, which I cut in half and scoop out the seeds. I then cut the rockmelon halves in half again, then the quarters in halves, for eight large pieces, or cut those pieces in half again for 16 thin slices. Lastly, I cut the skin off each piece.
Assemble the Prosciutto and Melon
This starter couldn’t be easier to assemble. Carefully separate the prosciutto slices so they don’t tear apart, and depending on whether you opted for thick or thin rockmelon pieces, wrap 1-2 prosciutto slices around each piece.
Distribute the prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe pieces between plates if you’re serving them as an appetiser for a sit-down meal or spread them out on a base of fresh rucola on a serving plate or platter – or garnish with fresh basil for fragrance as I have – and place at the centre of the table or on a buffet as antipasto or aperitivo snacks for guests to help themselves. Enjoy!
Prosciutto and Melon Recipe for a Classic Italian Appetiser
Ingredients
- 1 small rockmelon - also called a cantaloupe; see notes
- 160 g prosciutto - thin slices, around 16 pieces; see notes
Instructions
- Cut the rockmelon in half and scoop out the seeds. Cut the rockmelon halves in half again, then the quarters in halves, for eight large pieces, or cut those in half again for 16 thin slices. Cut the skin off each piece.
- Carefully separate the prosciutto slices so they don’t tear apart, and depending on whether you opted for thick or thin rockmelon pieces, wrap 1-2 prosciutto slices around each piece.
- Divide the prosciutto wrapped rockmelon pieces between plates as a starter or garnish with fresh basil or serve on a platter of fresh rucola at the centre of the table or on a buffet as antipasto or aperitivo snacks.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this prosciutto and melon recipe for the classic Italian appetiser of prosciutto e melone, as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
