Avocado Corn and Tomato Salad

Not every salad needs lettuce or greens to be delicious and healthy. Avocado Corn and Tomato Salad is a perfect example of that! Make this your new favourite summer side dish!

I love a good side dish. I find it’s always the most complicated part of any meal, so when I find one, it makes me happy. Do you know what I mean though? For us home cooks, it’s the question that can be the most daunting.

THE SIDE DISH QUESTION

Being a planner, an organizer, and a control freak, I tend to think about what we are going to have for dinner early in the day. I’m not very good with being spontaneous. I can plan to have chicken, beef, salmon, etc. But, that one pesky question remains. What can I serve with it?

Coming up with a main is not the issue. It’s what to serve with that main. And, I’m not sure about you, but I have to have a side or two that works well with the main. I know some people will just prepare a side dish just because they feel like it. But, I need the two to work together.

A SALAD TO SAVE THE DAY AND YOUR BANK BALANCE

Enter Avocado Corn and Tomato Salad. This is such a great salad and it can be paired it with so many things. When I thought of this salad, I wanted it to be that way. I wanted it to be delicious, colourful, and budget-freindly. But, more importantly, I wanted it to take the guess work out of pairing it with a main.

So, this is certainly a summery type of salad. Sure, the base is cabbage, which you can find any time of the year. But, the best time to use fresh tomatoes is when they’re in season. We eat a lot of tomatoes in the summertime. In fact, I probably eat a fresh, whole tomato every day.

Corn is very summery as well. But, I wanted to keep this salad as simple as possible, so I used canned corn. You can use frozen or fresh corn if you prefer to do so. Avocados though, are a hit or miss. Sometimes, they can be quite budget friendly. Other times, it might feel like you need to take out a second mortgage on your home just to pay for a couple of them.

All joke aside, all in all, this salad is not going to break the bank. Even the dressing is homemade and uses ingredients you most likely already have on hand. It’s a win-win!

THE DRESSING IS AS IMPORTANT AS THE VEGGIES

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. No matter how many veggies you toss into a salad, it’s the dressing that will make the difference. The dressing is the most important part of any salad. Otherwise, why would we every eat a bowl of mixed greens? I’ll pass, thanks!

For this particular salad, I wanted a creamy dressing. But, I wanted it to be light and not completely take over the flavour of those avocados and tomatoes. I used low fat ingredients. You can use regular if you prefer.

I used fat free mayo and 5% sour cream. And, believe it or not, that’s the entire creamy part of the dressing. I whisked those two together with lime juice to thin it out a bit. That also added lots of freshness to the dressing. To add balance, I used a lot of black pepper and just a little bit of salt.

The flavour for this dressing is layered with just a little bit of celery salt. If you’ve never used celery salt before, I encourage you to do so. It’s a wonderful flavour and you can find it anywhere. Celery salt is a seasoning blend that consists of salt and ground celery seeds. It adds so much flavour to this salad!

Just a warning, before you get to the recipe. This is a salad you’ll want to eat fresh. It’s not a good idea to make this to far ahead of time. The avocados will break down and not look or taste as fresh. The tomatoes will begin to wilt. I would recommend no more than a few hours in advance, and certainly not overnight. Enjoy!

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