Fiesta Salad
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This fresh, delicious, and super healthy Fiesta Salad with beans and veggies works as a light lunch, side dish, appetizer, or snack anytime. Check out the reviews to see how much readers love this one!
4 Reasons to Make Fiesta Salad
- Amazing Flavor & Color: The lime flavor is front and center (mmmm!), the colorful vegetables and fresh herbs make it pop visually, the beans add satisfying protein and fiber, and the peppers give crunch.
- Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free: Whether you’re watching your carbs or avoiding gluten and dairy, this salad is perfect.
- Popular Appetizer: This recipe, like our Asian Turkey Meatballs and Chicken Lettuce Wraps, is a crowd-pleasing yet healthier appetizer.
- Make Ahead: I’d recommend making this big batch on the weekend and then having it in the fridge for healthy snacks and lunches during the week. The flavors get better as they hang out longer.
Ingredients
Gather these fresh, colorful, and nutrient-dense ingredients for the salad.
Ingredient Notes:
- If you don’t like cilantro, fresh parsley can be used instead. Do not use dried herbs in this salad–it just won’t be the same.
- Feel free to use almost any other canned beans in place of the black beans or black-eyed peas. Some ideas: chickpeas, kidney beans, white beans, or red beans.
- For the dressing, you’ll need: fresh lime zest and juice, extra virgin olive oil (sub: avocado oil), minced garlic, honey, and a few pantry seasonings. It’s simple yet fresh and tasty. If you want a little creamier dressing, try our Cilantro Lime Viniagrette.
- The fresher your produce is, the better this salad will be.
Note: Find the full printable recipe at the bottom of this post.
Tip for Making the Chopping Easier
This isn’t a difficult recipe, but be prepared to chop, chop, chop. I got a new chef’s knife for Christmas that I’ve been waiting my whole life for (I didn’t know I was, but I was). It makes chopping vegetable after vegetable a delightful task as it quickly slices and dices anything in its way.
America’s Test Kitchen, my go-to source for unbiased ratings and reviews of cookware and kitchen equipment, highly recommends this particular knife. The best news is that it’s very affordable on Amazon! I tell everyone to get it.
How to Serve Fiesta Chopped Salad
Serve this salad with your favorite tortilla chips or some sturdy crackers. I actually discovered some very additive, gluten-free crackers at a few grocery stores called CrunchMaster Multi-Seed Crackers that pair perfectly!
FAQs
This salad can easily be tweaked with what you have on hand or what you like. Other ingredients that can be used or swapped in: quinoa, cooked lentils, store-bought pico de gallo, Cotija cheese or feta cheese, grilled and chopped chicken, other kinds of beans.
Fiesta Salad is best served cold with chips or crackers personally.
However, this could be really tasty warmed up and served over Cilantro Lime Rice with some Cilantro Lime Aioli drizzled over the top. Why not add in some chopped Cilantro Lime Chicken while you’re at it? Yum!
As written, this recipe is not very spicy. So feel free to kick up the heat with some hot sauce, extra minced jalapeño peppers, or ground cayenne pepper.
Other Salads You Might Like
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Fiesta Salad
This fresh, delicious, and super healthy bean salad (or is it salsa?) works as a light lunch, side dish, appetizer, or snack anytime. Make this on the weekend and eat on it throughout the week. Eat on its own or scoop it with tortilla chips or crackers.
Ingredients
Salad:
- 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
- 1 red or orange bell pepper, seeded and diced
- 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
- 1/2 red onion, minced
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 1 can corn, drained (or use 1 cup of fresh corn cut off the cob)
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 bunch cilantro, minced (sub: fresh parsley)
Dressing:
- zest of 1 lime
- juice of 2 limes
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (sub: avocado oil)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Optional Add-Ins:
- hot sauce, to taste (optional)
- 1–2 avocados, diced (optional)
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Instructions
- Stir together the the peppers, onion, tomatoes, corn, beans, and cilantro in a large serving bowl.
- In a mason jar with a lid, add the lime zest, lime juice, oil, garlic, honey, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Shake until combined.
- Pour 3/4th of the dressing over the salad and stir, reserving the rest for later if needed. Cover the salad and extra dressing and store in the fridge until ready to use, up to a day in advance. Let the chopped salad marinate for at least 20-30 minutes ahead of time before serving to give the flavors a chance to marry together.
- Right before serving, stir in the avocado (so it doesn’t get brown and mushy ahead of time). Taste and season with more salt, pepper, hot sauce, and dressing as needed.
Notes/Tips
- Be sure to chop everything rather small and uniformly, so it all fits on a chip easily.
- Cover and store in the fridge for about 3 days or so.
- Serve with tortilla chips or sturdy crackers.
- This recipe makes a LARGE batch. Feel free to cut it in half or store extras for days in the fridge.
Added romaine lettuce and served it as a salad. It was delicious. Great recipe for the gluten and dairy free.
Hi Carole. Love that it turned out so well with lettuce added. Thanks for the review and suggestion!
I’m a chef and this recipe I love it!!
So glad you enjoy this Guy! Thanks for taking the time to leave a review.
My six-year-old said he loves this salad. He said, “It’s just so flavorful mom.” I’d have to agree. We are eating the leftovers for lunch today.
Yum! I love recipes like this where the leftovers are just as tasty. Glad your son likes it too. Thanks for leaving a review Julie.
Everyone loves this when I bring it to get-togethers. It’s so fresh and flavorful, and healthy! I made it for small group last week, two 4th of July parties this week, and ate it for lunch in between.
Yes! Love to hear this Heather. Thanks for leaving a review.
Did it exactly as recipe and added 2 avocados and no hot sauce. It was. A big hit. Delicious
I always add avocados to mine too Cindy! Thanks for sharing.
Absolutely LOVED this salad
I made it for family who have gluten, corn, dairy, onion & sugar allergies!! No kidding! I substituted the corn for a yellow pepper and no onion, of course. Refrigerated for about 5 hrs then added avocado and more cilantro on top. It looked amazing with all the colour and smelt and tasted delicious. It was eaten up! No better compliment to the chef!! Thank you for this
Wow, thank you so much for this feedback, Susan. And I’m so happy to hear you could easily sub out to avoid food allergies!
Amazing recipe! So fresh and full of flavor. I used it on the delicious Crockpot Mexican Chicken recipe, but have also snacked on it by itself. Yum!
What a good idea to serve it with the Crockpot Mexican Chicken. Glad you liked it, Jennifer. Good to hear from you!
Love this salad. Cool ,refreshing Nourishing all in one – love it as a side just a pic on when I’m hungry what could be better thank you
That’s so great, Connie. I’ve found it’s a good one to prep ahead and eat on all week for lunch, too.
I made this for our family gathering and it was a great hit! The fresh squeezed lime juice in the dressing was so very tasty! I loved that it was WW friendly for their point system, too. Thank you for your great menu plans and recipe ideas that are so easy to follow.
Wonderful to hear, Susan. There’s just something about fresh lime juice. I’m happy to hear it fits well in your WW lifestyle, too. Thanks for taking the time to leave this comment. Means so much to us.
Loved the flavors!
The veggies are the star of the show. If you have quality produce this recipe is amazing.
Delicious! I made this for Cinco de Mayo for a fun treat for the day. My husband and I loved it. Served it with Lime chips. Snacked on it for a couple of days.
What a great idea to serve with Lime Tortilla Chips. Yum! Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, Diane. We really appreciate it!
Served this at two potlucks and took none home! Was asked for recipe at both. For myself, I cut the recipe in half, using full can of corn and black beans, omitting the black eyed peas. My husband eats it plain. I eat it with Tostitos, like a salsa. So healthy, no guilt (except the chips)
Love this so much! Thanks for the review, Stacie.
Can you add quinoa to this?
Hi Penny! We have not tried it that way, but I don’t see why not. Please let us know how it turns out if you do try it.
Delicious!!! Everyone asked when I would make it again! So fresh and healthy, it only lasted a couple of days in our 4 adult household. Great for lunch or as a side dish. I could snack on it all day long with crackers.
Nice! Glad you enjoyed it.
I love this but it makes a lot can it be frozen
Unfortunately, this recipe cannot be frozen and retain a good texture. It will end up a mushy mess. Sorry!
This looks amazing and in addition to having it with chips or crackers, I bet it would be awesome on some baked chicken!!!
Love that idea and just shared it with our readers in this week’s e-newsletter. Thanks, Kim!