Guacamole Salad with Jalapeño-Lime Dressing
Some people say that guacamole is the perfect food. Who am I to disagree? Turning it into a summer salad that you can bring to parties, BBQs, or even serving it as an easy lunch transforms everyone's favorite food into a meal. This salad is super flexible and you could add different proteins depending on the tastes in your family. We made it with grilled corn and some black beans and felt that was plenty hearty.
Servings: TWO large or four small salads
INGREDIENTS
6 cups arugula leaves
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
¼ cup cilantro, minced
½ pint grape tomatoes, quartered
1 avocado, peeled, deseeded, sliced
grilled chicken or shrimp (optional)
grilled corn (optional)
black beans (optional)
a few tortilla chips broken up (optional)
JALAPEÑO-LIME DRESSING
2 jalapeños, deseeded, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons cilantro
1 tablespoon honey
5 tablespoons avocado oil
juice of 1 lime
¼ teaspoon salt (adjust as needed)
pinch of ground black pepper (adjust as needed)
PREPARATION
1 To make vinaigrette, place jalapeño, cilantro, honey, oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper in a small blender and blend through. Adjust to taste by adding more lime, cilantro, or salt. Let the dressing sit for 5 minutes as it will thicken.
2 In a large bowl, place the arugula, red onion, cilantro, tomatoes, and any grilled protein, corn or black beans. Add dressing to bowl and toss. Place avocado on top and tortilla chips.
3 (Optional) To make the grilled corn when you don’t have a grill, heat a cast iron skillet on the stove. Place about 1 1/2 cups of corn in the skillet (you can take the corn directly from the freezer and put it into the pan). When the corn has slightly thawed out, add about 1 teaspoon of avocado oil to the pan, salt, and pepper. Continue stirring. The corn will char in about 5 minutes.
NOTES
This is a super flexible salad so you can pull it together with whatever leftover proteins you have in your refrigerator.