Preparing meals for picky people can be tricky. Trust me, I’m married to one. He barely likes anything, especially vegetables. He absolutely refuses to have anything to do with vegetables! It doesn’t matter how I prepare them; I could load them up with butter and oil and garlic and make them the most unhealthy, fattening vegetables you’ve ever had, and he still says no.
One day, we were at a restaurant and he order a salad for his side. I was shocked. When I questioned him, he said he had seen someone else’s salad and they chop up the vegetables super small. I had a revelation; his aversion to vegetables was all mental. He sees them as big, chunky masses of rabbit food and his mind shuts off his taste buds. Over the next few days I began to research the best way to make veggies when you cut them up really small. Then, I discovered something? What is salsa if not tiny vegetables in seasoning and sauce? Thus began my quest for the perfect, vegetable filled salsa. There’s plenty of hummus dip and guacamole dips and even greek yogurt dip recipes but my goal was vegetables and I had to keep that in my mind at all times.
Homemade salsa is always going to be better than the store bought stuff. Plus, it’s so easy to make there is really no reason to buy it ready made. Recipes with salsa are all over the place, so I ended up combining a few to make, what I think, is very close to a salsa salad. As long as I serve with with burritos or chips and call it salsa, my husband doesn’t care that he’s eating mouth fulls of healthy, wonderful vegetable goodness. So, what is salsa salad and how do you make it? Let me tell you.
Ingredients:
A handful of tomatoes
A few jalapenos
Half a large white onion
Half a large red onion
As much as you want, cilantro
A ton of garlic
Lime juice, a lot
Seasonings, whatever you think. I used garlic salt and pepper.
Tropical fruit like pineapple, mango or peach, or all three.
As you can see, my measurements aren’t specific. I taste test all the way through until it’s perfect. Granted, you end up with a lot less salsa this way but it’s so worth it!
Don’t cook anything. That’s the main thing to remember. No grilling, frying, baking, roasting or boiling is necessary. In fact, raw veggies have the most nutrients.
Chop, cut, dice or puree everything, depending on the consistency you want.
I pureed the stuff that he particularly hates like cilantro and tomatoes; diced up the sweet stuff like the fruit; mashed up the garlic and onions; chopped the jalapenos into teeny tiny pieces and tossed it all in lime juice and the seasonings.
That’s all there is to it. I promise you, even the pickiest of the pickiest will not be able to resist of a few bites of this salsa. You ask ‘what is salsa salad’? Well, ask no more. Try it out and love it. It tastes so good you’ll think it’s bad for you.