I love guacamole but I’m trying to take it easy on the chips and for some reason, it seems gluttonous to eat it with a fork. Why it is less gluttonous to eat guac’ with fried corn chips makes no sense logically but it just feels wrong to eat dip on its own. Hummus gets the same treatment… no one would fault you for eating a chickpea salad with tahini dressing but once it is mashed up, it’s off limits without some sort of hummus-holding food. We eat mashed potatoes with a fork rather than scooping them up with pieces of beef jerky so the rule doesn’t always apply, but in general, the mashing seems to be the issue.
So I started cutting up the basic ingredients of guacamole in larger chunks, going a little heavy on the tomatoes, and since you can stick it with a fork… it’s a salad!
Ingredients:
2 medium to large tomatoes, blanched, peeled and cut into bite sized sections*
1 yellow onion, diced
1 small bunch of cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
juice of 1 lime
1/2 to 1 tsp. salt
1 jalepeno, seeded and chopped finely
1 Tbs. white vinegar
1 ripe avocado
Mix all ingredients with the exception of the avocado in a bowl and chill for at least 1/2 hour. Cut the avocado into bite sized pieces and mix it in a few minutes before serving.
*I like my tomatoes peeled for this salad but it’s a completely unnecessary step. If you do decide to peel them, it’s made much easier by blanching them. I just hold them with tongs over the sink and pour boiling water over them from a tea kettle to loosen the skins. I then run them under cold water until they are cool enough to handle. At that point the skins slip off very easily.
