21 Popular Orange Fruits

Orange is a popular fruit, enjoyed worldwide for its sweet, tangy flavor and bright color. Originating from a hybrid of pomelo and mandarin, sweet oranges like the Navel and the bitter Seville variety are common.

They’re commonly used in cooking for raw consumption or for cooking dishes that require a touch of fragrance.

Mango is a tropical fruit available in many countries around the world. Found in various colors, including yellow, green, pink, crimson, and sometimes orange, each variety has its distinct hue with small dots on its skin.

Mango season peaks from May to September. These fruits usually have an oblong shape, while their orange-yellow flesh is juicy and sweet.

People tend to use mangoes to enhance the flavors of dishes, and they can be enjoyed sliced in salads, with ice cream, or in drinks.

Peach is a sweet and juicy fruit with a soft, fuzzy exterior and a hard pit in the center. Originating from China, it’s now grown in temperate regions worldwide.

These semi-soft fruits are enjoyed fresh, canned, or used in various culinary dishes. They come in different varieties, including yellow, orange, and white flesh, each with its unique taste profile.

Tangerine is a small, sweet citrus fruit, a hybrid of mandarin oranges and pomelos, with thin peelable skin. Cultivated mainly in sunny climates, they are harvested from autumn to spring.

These fruits are popularly used as desserts, snacks, juices, and salad ingredients. Often, tangerines are sweeter and less tart than sweet oranges, with even their bitter skin used for flavoring drinks, cakes, and sauces.

Mandarin is one of the ancestral citrus fruits with a round to spherical shape. Originating from Southeast Asia and southwest China, mandarins were cultivated by the Chinese thousands of years before being introduced to Europe.

The fruit’s interior naturally divides into 9 to 15 segments filled with sweet and sour juice. Known for their juiciness and sweetness, mandarins are a popular dessert in many Asian countries.

Grapefruit is a subtropical citrus fruit, believed to be a hybrid between sweet orange and pomelo. Surprisingly, it is among the largest fruits in the citrus family.

Harvested annually between October and May, its juicy, reddish flesh varies from sweet to bitter, with darker varieties tending to be sweeter. Commonly enjoyed as a dessert or snack, grapefruit can be cut into pieces as preferred.

Pumpkin is likely the largest orange fruit, first emerging in North America in about 9,000 years. Its hard exterior ranges from light to bright orange when it ripes, while its yellow flesh houses large seeds.

Pumpkins are often used as a vegetable in desserts, soups, and salads. When cooked, the flesh offers a soft and tender texture similar along with a mild sweetness.

Harvested in autumn, pumpkins are a traditional part of Thanksgiving meals in North America and a popular Halloween decoration globally.

Apricot is a small of Chinese origin with a sweet, slightly tart flesh and pleasant aroma. Its skin comes with a soft, fur-like texture, and showcases a range of colors from yellow and orange to crimson.

Usually, the fruit possesses a large, inedible seed. Often consumed raw, apricots are enjoyed as juices, salads, ice creams, cakes, desserts, jams, and chutneys.

Persimmon is a round, flat-shaped fruit with glossy skin, topped with a large green stem. These fruits are notably sweet and quite tender when ripe.

Varieties like Oriental, American, and velvet persimmon are well-known and available from October to January. These fruits are delicious, whether eaten raw or blended into juice.

Blood orange is a variety known for its unique crimson flesh, a result of anthocyanins, rare pigments in citrus fruits. Grown in warm and temperate regions, it matures in winter and early spring.

Blood oranges come in three types, including Moro, Tarocco, and Sanguinello.

Generally, their flavor combines sweet orange, raspberries, tart cherries, and grapefruit.

Blood oranges are great for enhancing cakes, desserts, meats, and salads with their delightful color.

Kumquat is an egg-shaped fruit with edible skin and flesh, offering a unique mix of tart and sweet profiles. Native to China, kumquats are also found in California and Florida, USA, with their trees fruiting from January to March.

The fruit also has many varieties, like Meiwa, Jiangsu, and Nagami, which offer slight differences in shape and taste.

Small kumquats make for great snacks or desserts, fitting well into a daily diet.

Butternut squash is a fruit boasting a nutty, slightly sweet flavor similar to pumpkin. When perfect for harvesting, its skin turns from dark green to dark orange.

As for the flesh, it includes a yellow to light orange flesh filled with edible seeds. Interestingly, the squash is recognizable for its long, bulbous shape.

Often used as a vegetable, the squash can be roasted, toasted, mashed, or boiled.

Kinnow is a citrus fruit that looks similar to an orange but can be distinguished by its sour and succulent profile. The citrus also has a darker and thicker skin.

Originating from India and Pakistan, kinnow is a high-yielding tree, often bearing more than 1,000 fruits. These citrus are often enjoyed fresh for their juiciness.

Seville orange is a sour and bitter orange species. Coming from Asia and introduced to Sevilla in the 1100s, it has thick, rough skin and ranges from small to medium size.

Widely cultivated in Spain and harvested in winter, it can be frozen for later use. Seville orange juice is incorporated in syrups, cocktails, and sauces to flavor fish dishes in Spain.

Additionally, essential oil and marmalade made from this orange are highly valued.

Calamansi is a hybrid citrus fruit, stemming from kumquat and possibly mandarin. Native to Southeast Asia and Taiwan, its skin ranges from green when young to orange as it ripens.

Calamansi is a staple in various local dishes. It offers a unique sour and sweet taste, ideal for both food seasoning and making refreshing juice.

Red kuri squash is a fruit with a distinct structure, featuring a smooth, dark orange skin speckled with yellow. Native to Japan, it’s known as “Japanese squash” or “orange Hokkaido squash”.

Under the vibrant skin, it has a sweet, rich orange flesh with a nutty flavor. Cooking methods such as roasting, baking, and boiling are great for handling this squash, especially in making soups, casseroles, and stews.

Orange cherry tomato is technically a fruit, as it grows from flowers and contains seeds. This tomato variety is smaller and sweeter than larger varieties, flourishing in summer and fall.

They add a colorful touch to dishes along with a signature sweet profile. Ideal for fresh eating, orange cherry tomatoes are also great for adding to soups and making delicious toppings for crostini.

Orange bell pepper is often used as a vegetable, offering a crisp and tangy taste that’s sweeter than its green counterpart. The fruit offers a smooth, edible exterior and sectioned interior.

It’s versatile in cooking, great for roasting with olive oil and garlic or adding fresh to soups.

Marian plums are egg-shaped fruits with orange-yellow peels and originally grew in Indonesia and Burma. Nowadays, people in Thailand and some Southeast Asian countries cultivate it for economic purposes.

People categorize plums into sour and sweet kinds, with sweet ones being their favorite on the market. Additionally, mayong is a special type of marian plum that belongs to Thailand, offering a sweet taste paired with a slight sourness.

You can treat these small fruits as snacks or toppings for salads and ice cream.

Golden berry is a small, vibrant orange fruit encased in a papery husk. It originated in South America but thrives in both temperate and tropical climates.

The fruit is juicy, with a sweet and tart flavor, making it ideal for snacks, salads, smoothies, and as an accompaniment to fish and meat dishes.

Tangelo is a citrus fruit hybrid derived from the tangerine and either the pomelo or grapefruit. The produce stands out for its distinct pear-shaped appearance and a characteristic nipple at the stem.

The skin of a tangelo is thin, smooth, and easy to peel, accompanied by juicy, sweet, and mildly tart flesh inside. Often larger than a tangerine but smaller than a grapefruit, tangelos are known for their vibrant orange color and fewer seeds.