TOMATO, CUCUMBER, AVOCADO SALAD
With summer under full swing, here is a salad that is refreshing and healthy! So today’s recipe is a simple summer salad – a tomato, cucumber, avocado salad. This is a quick and easy salad to put together that uses just a couple of summer ingredients. Juicy cherry tomatoes, cool, crunchy cucumber and creamy avocado. This recipe calls for some salty feta, red onion and a little minced parsley as well. Toss with a simple red wine vinaigrette and the salad is ready in under 15 minutes!
This is great as a side dish or serve it as your main course with some crunchy french bread, cheese and maybe some fresh fruit and you’ve got a cool, easy lunch for a hot day.
A couple of notes:
-Because this is such a simple salad, presentation means a lot. So try and cut all your ingredients to be roughly the same size – you want to use a very sharp knife that easily slices the vegetables and cheese. Be careful!
-Soak the red onion slice in a little water, for a couple of minutes, before mincing. This will remove some of the raw onion taste.
-Avocado does not refrigerate well. So if you are not eating it right away, wait to add the avocado until just before serving.
-It you want to make a vegan version of this tomato, cucumber, avocado salad then substitute kalamata olives for the feta cheese.
INGREDIENTS
•1½ cups of chopped tomatoes – Can substitute cherry tomatoes if you would like!
•1 cucumber – peeled and seeded then diced
•1 avocado – diced
•4 oz feta cheese – cubed
•2 tbs minced red onion
•1 handful parsley – minced – about 2 tbs
•2 tbs olive oil
•1 tbs red wine vinegar
•8 twists of black pepper from a pepper mill
INSTRUCTIONS
1- Chop tomatoes into a medium dice. If using cherry tomatoes, cut in half. Add to a bowl.
2- Peel and seed one cucumber and dice. Add to bowl.
3- Remove pit, dice avocado and using a spoon scoop out the avocado from the peel. Add to bowl.
4- Cube feta and add to bowl.
5- Add minced red onion and minced parsley to bowl.
6- Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar and black pepper – pour over salad.
7- Toss gently so the feta and avocado don’t break up. Serve immediately.
8- If refrigerating – keep the avocado aside and add before severing.
