Avocado Salad

This 3 Ingredient Simple Avocado Salad Recipe is the perfect substitute to guacamole for avocado lovers out there. With just three ingredients, you’ll be mind-blown at how delicious and healthy this avocado salad is!

I love avocado in salads – avocado corn salad, shrimp avocado salad and avocado egg salad, they all taste amazing!

3-Ingredient Easy Avocado Salad Recipe

I love guacamole, it’s true! In fact, I love it so much that I have no less than three recipes already shared, including a super simple guacamole recipe, Greek yogurt guacamole, and salsa guacamole. I also have a Greek yogurt avocado dip with buffalo sauce, which is delicious. However, this time I’d like to share something a little different with this quick and easy avocado salad!

In a way, this avocado salad is a little like a deconstructed guacamole. However, with the careful selection of green onions in place of the classic cilantro, this healthy green salad manages to hold its own without simply tasting like un-mashed guac. All you need is just five ingredients – avocado, lemon juice, green onions, and salt and pepper! What could be easier?! Really, it’s only 3 ingredients too, since no one counts the salt and pepper as separate ingredients in recipes!

And sure, avocados pair wonderfully with other veggies like tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, etc. as we’ve already proven with this chickpea salad and Mexican kale salad. However, the star of the show in this easy salad really is the avocado! But I will, of course, list some of my favorite optional add-ins for this salad below too!

Avocado is probably actually one of my favorite additions to any fresh salad. So much do, that it’s part of over a dozen salads on the blog including the two mentioned above plus a healthy taco salad, Mediterranean quinoa salad, smoked salmon salad, and more! This time, we’re going right back to the basics to really appreciate this antioxidant-rich, creamy, delicious ingredient.

While this pairs wonderfully with all your favorite Mexican and Tex Mex dishes, it’s also a great addition to any meal needing a simple salad side and the addition of some healthy fats too. Keep reading for all my favorite suggestions!

How to Choose, Store and Ripen Avocados

• Look for fruit that is firm yet gives slightly when gently squeezed. If it’s overripe it will be too soft and ‘mushy’ when squeezing.
• If the avocado is hard, it’s not ready to eat yet. You can then follow the tips below to ripen it.
• Ripening avocados on a counter takes about 2-4 days depending on the temperature and how unripe they were to begin with.
• To speed up the ripening process, place them in a paper bag with a banana. The ethylene gases produced by the bananas will help to speed up the ripening process.
• You can refrigerate unripened avocados until you are ready to ripen them. I always stock up.
• Once beginning to ripen, store any avocados you don’t want to use immediately in the fridge. That way it’ll slow down the ripening rocess.

Bonus Tip: I recently realized you could even freeze whole avocados. I usually only do this when I’m going to use the avocado within smoothies and recipes where it’s not the ‘key ingredient’ as the texture can change a little.

The Ingredients

• Avocado: If you’re wanting to make the avocado ‘on the day,’ then purchase your avocado ripe. Otherwise, it’s best to purchase them unripened rather than risk them going bad before you get around to the recipe.
• Lemon Juice: Or optionally lime juice. Please don’t use bottled, this salad has such simple ingredients that you really need to use the best, freshest ingredients.
• Green Onions: Thinly sliced green onions pair amazingly with ripe avocado. You can also experiment with other herbs like parsley but be careful of cilantro as it will just make the salad taste like guacamole.
• Salt & Pepper: To season, nothing complicated is required for this recipe!

Optional Add-Ins

Obviously, there are tons of ways to adapt this avocado with tons of extras, but there’s no point in me mentioning every little thing, otherwise you’ll end up with completely different salad. However, here are a few simple add-ins you may enjoy that still keep avocados as the star.

• Tomatoes: A handful of grape or cherry tomatoes chopped in half will complement the avocado well and make for a beautiful addition too.
• Cucumber: Just 1/4- 1/2 a small cucumber chopped into quartered slices will add a little crunch to the avocado salad.
• Red Onion: When combined with any or all of the above and avocado, red onion helps add crunch and a slightly bitter tang. To remove the ‘harshness’ of raw onion, you could soak the onion in ice water for 10-15 minutes before adding it to the avocado salad.
• Cheese: A little crumbled feta, goat’s cheese, or similar type of cheese will elevate the flavor of this avocado salad recipe further. You can also enjoy mozzarella and avocado in this tomato mozzarella salad.
• Salad Dressing: If you want to boost the flavor further, then the addition of a simple herby olive oil-based dressing would work wonders as I used for this white bean salad.

For an avocado salad that combines tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and corn with avocado, you’ll love this avocado corn salad.

How to Make Avocado Salad

• Cut each avocado in half and remove the pit: To do this, abruptly stick the sharp end of a knife into the pit and twist it. Be careful when removing the pit from your knife! Then cut each half into 2-3 strips (depends how wide), peel and slice. This way, the avocado slices won’t get squashed (which can happen if you try to chop them while only halved._
• Combine all ingredients in a large salad bowl: Combine the avocados, green onion, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Stir gently with a wooden spoon. That’s it!

How To Make Ahead and Store

Storing: Like many avocado recipes, as soon as the fruit is exposed to oxygen, it will start to oxidize and brown. Though the lemon juice will help keep them green for longer, this avocado salad is best eaten within 6 hours. You may be able to keep it for up to a day if it’s stored wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or an airtight container.

To make ahead: You can chop and toss the avocado in the citrus juice up to four hours before adding the remaining ingredients and serving.

What to Serve With Avocado Salad?

The versatility of this easy salad really shines through when it comes to deciding what to pair it with, as there tons of options. Here are just a few of my top suggestions.

• Tacos: To be scooped into or served alongside chicken tacos, Buffalo chicken tacos, carne asada tacos, grilled fish tacos, and more. It will also pair well with taco dip.
  Other ‘wrap’ dishes: Like these chicken quesadillas, chicken enchiladas, and sheet pan steak fajitas. You could also serve it on its own in a toasted pita or wrap or to top Mexican stuffed peppers.
• Pasta and Chili: Like this chili mac n’ cheese, vegetarian chili or turkey chili.
• With Proteins: Like carne asada, Mexican meatballs, one pan chicken and rice, coconut lime grilled chicken thighs, or chili lime chicken.
• Casseroles: As a top or side to this sweet potato breakfast casserole or Mexican casserole.

More Healthy Avocado Recipes

• Tex Mex skillet sweet potatoes
• Asparagus salad
• Avocado egg spaghetti squash boats
• Shrimp ceviche
• Healthy cobb salad

You can also check out my full list of avocado recipes, or even this list of 45 healthy salads!