Southwest Avocado Salad is a colorful, filling, and nutritious entrée or side salad. Avocados and beans are tossed with our favorite veggies like, corn, peppers, and onions and drizzled with a delicious and easy cilantro vinaigrette.
This salad is easy to make and a fresh favorite to serve alongside grilled chicken fajitas or steak fajitas!
Prepping Avocado
Ripe avocados are one of my favorite snacks served with a bit of feta, salt and rice vinegar or even as Avocado Toast. They’re easy to prep and loaded with healthy fats.
- BUYING: Choose avocados that yield to gentle pressure but aren’t mushy. I try to buy a couple days ahead of time so they can ripen.
- CUTTING: Cut avocados just before serving as they can brown quickly. I cut them right in the peel and scoop out with a spoon.
- PREP: I usually add them right to the bowl and give a squeeze of lemon or lime juice to keep them from browning.
To Make Avocado Salad
A crispy, crunchy collection of colorful veggies, savory black beans, creamy avocados and a generous helping of cotija cheese! I prefer to use grilled corn in this recipe as I love the smoky flavor it adds. If you don’t have time to grill, you can place your corn under a broiler for a couple of minutes.
- Dressing: Combine all ingredients. Whisk thoroughly and set aside.
- Prep Veggies: Dice all veggies into uniform pieces. To make quick work of this I love using my favorite chopper!
- Combine: Place all ingredients in a large bowl and drizzle with dressing.
Top with Cotija cheese (or feta) and tortilla strips. Serve immediately.
Serve This With…
Keep the theme going with the addition of soft, warm corn or flour tortillas for scooping the salad up and eating taco-style. Or, you can top a bed of shredded greens with avocado salad and add a little more dressing, or salsa and sour cream.
Add some chopped chicken or shredded or taco meat to punch up the protein a little bit and make a fancy taco salad!
How Long Will it Last in the Fridge?
Sadly avocado doesn’t keep so well. This Avocado Salad is best prepped right before serving. If you’d like to make it last longer, combine everything except the avocado and refrigerate 3 to 5 days.
To refresh, simply give it a stir, and add in the avocado with a little bit of fresh lime juice and salt and pepper.
More Avocado Awesomeness
- Tomato Avocado Salad
- Avocado Salmon Salad
- Avocado Ranch Chicken Salad Wrap
- Avocado Egg Salad
- Cucumber Avocado Salad
- Avocado Corn Salad
Southwest Avocado Salad
Ingredients
- 2 avocados
- 1 corn on the cob grilled or 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 red bell pepper diced
- 1 cup canned black beans rinsed and drained
- ½ cup diced Roma tomatoes or cherry tomatoes halved
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 jalapeño seeded and diced
- ¼ cup diced red onion
- ¼ cup crumbled Cotija cheese or feta cheese
- ½ cup crispy tortilla strips optional
Dressing
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice divided use
- ¼ teaspoon chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- To make the dressing, combine 1 tablespoon lime juice with olive oil, chili powder, cumin and salt & pepper to taste.
- Cut avocados in half, remove the pit and dice. Toss with 2 teaspoons remaining lime juice.
- Place remaining ingredients in a bowl except for the cheese and tortilla strips. Drizzle with dressing and toss.
- Top with cheese & tortilla strips and serve.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Salad
Cuisine American, Mexican© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
This salad is SPECTACULAR! Didn’t want to open a brand new package of Cotija cheese so I went with Feta instead. No problema. I finished it a half-hour ago and my mouth is STILL happy! Thank you for this.
I’m so glad you loved it Nick!
It was SO good, I just ordered your cookbook. CA-CHING!
This is so yummy!!! I’ve made it a few times and I can’t get enough. Thank you, Holly! Your recipes are always so dang good! I have a binder printed out with a lot of your recipes.
Thank you for your kind words, so glad you’ve loved them!
This is such a tasty salad! Especially if you love avocados. We had a little bit of leftover salad and I put it in a small bowl and covered it with press and seal wrap… but I didn’t cover “the bowl” – I pressed it down over the salad and then up and over the sides of the bowl – so there was no air trapped in with the salad – the next day it was perfect – NO BROWN AVOCADO! This works perfectly every time. Thank you for sharing your amazing and yummy recipes- you are always my go to recipe girl whenever I am searching for something delicious and I am always pleased with the results!!
Thank you for your kind words; I’m so glad you loved this Karen! Thank you for sharing your storage tip!
The lime juice tossed in with the avocado is the secret.
Looks absolutely delicious. I will be trying this immediately. Thank you!
Can’t wait for you to try it Donna! Let us know what you think!