Southwest Salad

I love this southwest salad recipe (or Mexican salad, as it is sometimes called).

It is a no lettuce salad. Instead it’s filled with ingredients like black beans, corn, cucumber, avocado, tomatoes, peppers and onions. All topped off with a lime and cilantro dressing.

It is so delicious and easy peasy to make. This is definitely one of my new favorite summer salad recipes.

This vegetable and bean salad is really versatile and goes with so many things.

It’s a perfect salad for an any day barbecue and works great as a take along picnic salad. (Do people even have picnics any more? I love them.)

Bring it to your next pot luck too and you’ll be a real hit.

So let’s look at how to put together this wonderful vegetable and bean salad recipe that is perfect any time of year.

What Do you Need to Have to Make our Southwest Salad?

Southwest salad is a simple no lettuce salad that starts with a can of black beans. That’s right, a simple 14 ounce can of black beans.

You’ll also need some corn kernels for the salad. Canned corn works well, but of course if you have access to a couple of cobs of fresh corn, that’s even better.

Just steam the cobs for a few minutes first, then strip off the kernels.

After that we need a few fresh ingredients. The recipe uses 1 medium size avocado and 1/2 an English cucumber (the long ones).

Peel the cucumber if you don’t want to leave the skin on or leave it as is. Chop the avocado and the cucumber.

1 1/2 cups of chopped fresh tomatoes get added to the bowl along with a red, yellow or orange bell pepper, also chopped.

You will need 1 bunch of green onions, chopped to make 3/4 cup.

The recipe calls for 1/2 of a jalapeno pepper, but that’s optional. You can leave it out entirely or add a bit more or a bit less to suite the taste buds of your group.

Also optional is the hot sauce.

I like a couple of drops of hot sauce or dried cayenne pepper in the salad, but if you don’t like heat, just leave it out. It won’t affect the taste of the salad.

Dressing Your Southwest Salad

The dressing for this wonderful vegetable and bean salad is really simple, and we know that simple is often best.

Mix oil with fresh lemon or lime juice and add some salt and pepper. That’s it!

Now finely chop some beautifully fresh cilantro and mix that in with everything else.

Delicious!

How to Make Southwest Salad

Once you have all of your ingredients assembled, this summer salad recipe is so easy to put together.

Start out by making sure your black beans are rinsed and well drained. Add them to a large salad bowl.

Steam the corn and cut it from the cob if you are using fresh corn. If you use canned, just drain it before you add it to the bowl.

Chop the cucumber, tomatoes, red pepper and green onion and add them all to the large bowl.

Finely chop the cilantro and add it in.

I always wait until just before serving before I add the avocado. It browns so quickly.

That said, I always add some lemon juice to the chopped avocado as soon as it’s chopped, to try to avoid the browning. It does work to some extent.

Mix all of your ingredients together in the large bowl and pour the oil and fresh lemon or lime juice over it all and mix it again.

Whether you use lemon juice or lime juice is up to you. Sometimes the limes available in my area are dry, so I would use lemon juice.

I love them both but I think that using lime juice really gives it that Mexican salad taste.

Pop the salad bowl in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving it to let all of those flavors meld together.

This is a great make ahead salad recipe. That makes it perfect for a barbecue, a summer picnic or a pot luck dinner. Or just make it any day for a great weeknight salad.

Make it ahead, pop it in the fridge and you are all set and ready to go.

You can actually make it the day before you need to serve it.

So here is the recipe. I hope you enjoy it.

This wonderful Southwest salad would be great served with pulled pork. Get the pork recipe here.

If you prefer a vegetarian meal, combine this Southwest Salad with our Vegetable and bean burritos. They are gluten free if you use gluten free tortillas.

Browse all of our salad recipes here.

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Please add your comments and your own favorite summer salad recipes in the comments section below the recipe. Thanks a lot.