I came up with this recipe to accompany my Beet and Eggplant Tacos the other night. It’s easy, flavorful, and colorful!

The details:

Jump to recipe

Thought process:

I knew I wanted to have a Southwest-ish bean salad, which is a type I’ve had many times before. CONFINING myself to that genre limited my ingredient choices a lot. I consulted the Flavor Bible to clarify what goes with cucumber, bell pepper, and mango. Beyond those ingredients that I actually added to the salad, I considered avocado (which would have been good but I didn’t have one) and mint (not sure how that would have gone with the cilantro). I also considered putting coconut milk in the dressing, but I thought that might separate weirdly and in general fat dampens flavors and I wanted this to be really bright. I ended up relying on the standard vinaigrette RATIOS outlined in my Basic Vinaigrette post, except I included lots of salt because it’s seasoning the whole salad.

How to Cut a Mango:

1. 1. Cut off the fat end to make a stable surface
   2. Stand on its end and use a sharp knife to cut the two “fillets” from each side of the large skinny seed
   3. Cut the fillets longways in halves or thirds to reduce the curvature of the skin
   4. Lay skin side down and skin like a piece of fish – stick your knife blade between the skin and the flesh at one end, then hold the knife parallel to the cutting board while sliding towards the other end of the filet
   5. Cut up mango flesh into whatever size pieces you want

Below, the recipe:

Southwest Bean Salad

• 15.5 oz canned black beans, drained and rinsed
• 15.5 oz canned pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 red bell pepper, large dice
• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, large dice
• 1/4 medium red onion, large dice
• 2 small mangoes, peeled and large dice

Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette:

• 2 Tbsp lime juice
• 2 Tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 6 tsp canola oil

1. In a large bowl, combine all but the vinaigrette ingredients
2. In a medium bowl, stir together all the vinaigrette ingredients except the oil until fully combined.
3. Quickly whisk in the oil to emulsify
4. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad ingredients and toss to coat. Taste for seasoning.

Rating:

4/5 stars.

This is a perfect example of this type of salad. The vinaigrette was really good and the seasoning was spot on. It only loses a star because I’ve had similar salads before so it’s not that original.