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: Perfect for a game day dip! 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
How to Video
Fiesta Salad
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:
- 1.5 teaspoon lime zest (zest of 1 lime)
- 1/4 cup lime juice
- 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)
- 1-2 avocados (diced)
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.
Nutrition
Love this recipe…always use it a lot in the summer when I can use veggies from the garden! We tone down the spice by using no cayenne and removing the seeds and stems from the jalapeño. Thanks for am excellent recipe! I made it today and will use for different functions for the next three days. It makes a lot and I think it tastes great on the third day too.
Wonderful to hear you enjoy this one and can use up your garden veggies for it. Thanks for your tips about reducing the heat level and taking the time to leave a review!
So colorful and healthy
Thanks Kate. So glad you liked it.