Southwest Avocado Salad Recipe

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Are you someone who loves salads but can never quite feel full off of a bowlful of leafy greens? There are plenty of ingredients you can use to make salads more filling, and one of them is avocado. A small amount of avocado is often used as a garnish on dishes like salads, soups, and grain bowls, and sometimes avocado is blended up to make a dressing creamy. However, avocado can be the main ingredient in a rich and colorful salad that's filling to boot.

Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico has created a recipe for a Southwest-style avocado salad featuring avocados, tomatoes, cucumber, radish, red onion, corn, and cilantro. The dressing, besides olive oil, contains lime juice, garlic, and taco seasoning to flavor the salad, and you can choose to add honey as well for a slightly sweet finish. This salad is colorful, chockfull of fiber and beneficial vitamins and nutrients, and won't leave you hungry right after you eat it. It's easy to make too, so you can enjoy it right away.

Choose firm-ripe avocados for the salad. That means they're ripe but still hold their shape. Extra ripe avocados are delicious and perfect for guacamole or creamy dressings when you want the avocado to fall apart, but you want the avocado cubes to hold their shape here. This salad is so fresh and delicious (and so easy to make) that it just may become a new staple for an impressive, quick, and healthy meal.

For the dressing, you will need lime juice, extra virgin olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, and taco seasoning. Freshly-squeezed lime juice provides a nice acidic pop to the dressing, and if you'd like to add a hint of sweetness, you can optionally include honey as well.

For the salad, gather Hass avocados (a firm-ripe texture is recommended), cherry or grape tomatoes, cucumber, radish, red onion, corn kernels, and cilantro. Finally, taco seasonings can vary in their composition, so you can choose to sprinkle some salt on the salad to taste if you feel it needs it.

Place the olive oil, lime juice, garlic, and taco seasoning in a small bowl. Add optional honey if using.

Whisk the dressing until well combined and set aside.

Distribute the cubed avocado at the base of a shallow serving dish.

Arrange the sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and onion around and over the avocado.

Sprinkle the corn and cilantro on top.

Pour the dressing over the salad. Gently mix the dressing into the salad, being careful not to disturb the avocado too much so it stays intact.

Taste and season with salt if desired before serving.

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There are plenty of ways to customize this avocado salad. Feel free to mix and match the vegetables to include your favorites. Bell pepper, carrots, scallions, jicama, mushrooms, peas, cabbage, celery, and cauliflower are just some vegetables that would work. Add some sliced jalapeño pepper if you want some heat. While this salad doesn't contain lettuce, you could choose to place the avocado and vegetables on a bed of lettuce, spring mix, or arugula if you want to include leafy greens.

Turn the salad into a full meal by adding black beans, cubed tofu, crumbled Cotija, hard-boiled egg, shrimp, or other high-protein ingredients. A three-bean salad version could be made with black beans, chick peas, and kidney beans. Serve the salad with bread or turn it into a grain bowl by serving it with brown rice or another option like quinoa or millet for a complete dish.

You can leave the oil out of the dressing if you want to reduce the fat, since avocados already contain fat. If you're not using jalapeño in the salad, you could add chili pepper to the dressing to add some heat. Or, mixed herbs, either fresh or dried, can add more flavor to the dressing. Parsley, oregano, and thyme are options that vibe with taco seasoning. Finally, if you don't have limes, you can use lemon juice instead.

In this recipe, firm-ripe avocados are used, and they keep their shape when cubed. A simple way to make a creamy version of avocado salad is to use extra ripe avocados instead, chop them into small pieces, and toss the salad and dressing until the avocados fall apart and coat the vegetables with a creamy layer. The salad will have a different appearance and texture but the same great taste.

If you'd like the dressing to be smoother and creamier, just blend some of the avocado pieces into the dressing itself. Using avocado is a trick to make store-bought vinaigrette creamier, and it will work here too. Tahini is an unexpected ingredient that can also work. While not normally associated with Mexican cuisine, tahini is used in fusion dishes like tahini tacos to add a creamy texture and nutty flavor to a taco sauce, and it does go well with the spices in taco seasoning. It also adds healthy fats from the sesame seeds. Just whisk some tahini into the dressing.

A way to add more creaminess to the salad without adding more fat is to use silken or soft tofu. Blend it with the dressing until it's smooth and then toss the salad with the dressing. If you want the salad to be more of a complete meal, then the tofu will also add protein without the need to add separate high-protein ingredients to the salad itself.

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