Delicious Southwestern Salad with Avocado Lime Dressing - Perfect to add to your Thanksgiving menu or Cinco de Mayo menu. This is an easy and no-hassle salad with lots of veggies, and high protein beans, lastly, topped with a simple light vegan dressing.
Salads are normally no-hassle recipes. Just mix the ingredients and add some seasoning or dressing and you are ready with a delicious salad.
Southwestern salad is a simple avocado black bean corn salad with avocado-lime dressing. This salad is so healthy, delicious, and yet easy to make.
This Southwestern salad is one of the healthy salads that is vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free as well.
Southwestern Salad - Highlights
This Southwestern salad is a very tasty side dish and a great appetizer to please the crowd. It is mostly made up of vegetables. The main ingredients are corn, black beans, tomato, avocado, onion, and cilantro, etc.
This salad has a simple light seasoning with lemon or lime juice, salt, and pepper to flavor it better. Read another simple corn cucumber salad recipe here.
The only task you need to do is prep a few veggies and make the salad dressing. This is a great dish that is filling too and black bean adds a good amount of protein to the dish. The dressing is vegan with creamy avocado blended with a few spices together.
If you are on a diet, you can enjoy this salad as a full meal too. It has all the healthy ingredients and good fat you can rely on it. Even the dressing is free of mayo and has only an olive oil base. To make the dressing creamy we are adding avocado to the dressing. You can also add a simple lime vinaigrette to the salad.
Ingredients you will need to make Southwest Salad-
Black bean - Canned black beans - drained and rinsed. You can also make the black bean from scratch as well. Canned beans save a lot of time and effort. You can also add some other beans if you would like to. Even you can try your instant pot to cook black beans and store them for a week in the refrigerator. Preferably if you are making the black beans at home, allow them to cool down to room temperature.
Corn - Canned or frozen corn kernel. If using canned corn, drain and rinse the corn kernels. If using frozen corn, simmer for 4 - 5 minutes. I prefer frozen corn. Microwave for 2 minutes.
Bell peppers - take any bell peppers available in the pantry. I have taken red bell peppers.
Tomatoes - Dice the tomatoes into small chunks.
Red onion - Chop the red onions.
Avocado - Avocado is required for salad and dressing. This recipe calls for 1 avocado for sauce + 1/2 to 1 avocado for salad.
Lettuce - Romain lettuce - chopped roughly.
Cilantro leaves - a fist full of cilantro leaves for salad and dressing.
How to make Southwestern Salad with avocado dressing?
Prep the veggies in the required sizes. Drain and rinse the beans and corn before adding them to the bowl. If using frozen corn, then first simmer the kernels in water for 3 - 5 minutes till it's cooked. Place the ingredients in a large salad bowl. Add all salad veggies to the bowl.
Avocado Cilantro Lime Dressing
Prepare the salad dressing. In a blender, add 1 avocado diced, olive oil, garlic clove, cilantro leaves, and lime juice and blend to a smooth paste.
Now pour the prepared sauce into the mixing bowl of chopped veggies. Mix them well. A delicious salad is ready.
Variations -
If you want to add any more vegetables you can add them too. Even you can add variation to the topping sauce and add your favorite crema combination to the salad.
You can also add any other beans like red beans, pinto beans, etc. Or a combination of beans to the salad. All beans are equally high in protein.
What to serve with Southwestern Salad?
This is a great side dish as well as an appetizer. Serve it with nachos, tortilla chips, etc. Few more serving ideas include the following -
Add this to your vegan brunch also.
If you are looking for similar recipes, check out my Vegan Mexican Recipes.
Recipe Card for Southwestern Salad
Southwestern Salad with Avocado Lime Dressing
Equipment
- Salad spoon
- Knife
Ingredients
- ½ - 1 avocado peel off and dice into small cubes
- 1 romaine lettuce head chopped roughly
- 1/2 can black beans drained and rinsed
- 1/2 cup corn kernels canned or steamed
- 1 small red onion diced
- 1/2 cup peppers any color/ diced
- 1 cup diced tomatoes
- 2 tbsp chopped cilantro leaves
Avocado Lime Dressing
- 1 avocado diced roughly
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp chopped cilantro leaves
- 1 lime juice of 1 lime
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ - ¾ tsp black pepper powder
- ¼ cup olive oil
Instructions
- Dice the vegetables mentioned above like onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, avocado, and lettuce.
- Place them in a large mixing bowl.
- Now drain and rinse the canned black beans and corn under tap water in another bowl.
- once done, transfer them to the salad bowl and add to the chopped veggies.
Prepare avocado dressing
- In a high speed blender, add all ingredients mentioned above in the ingredients list under avocado dressing.
- Blend it to a smooth puree.
Pour the dressing
- Once the creamy avocado dressing is ready, pour it over the salad generously and give them a gentle mix.
- Avocado black bean salad is ready.
- Adjust the seasonings whenever required.
Video
Nutrition
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