Black Bean and Corn Salad

Ingredients

• 2 cans Black beans, canned no-salt-added, drained and rinsed
• 2 cups Frozen corn, thawed
• 1 Red bell pepper, diced
• ½ Red onion, finely diced
• 2 Lime
• 2 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp Ground cumin
• ½ tsp Smoked paprika
• ½ tsp Kosher salt
• ¾ cup Cilantro, torn
• 1 Avocado, diced (optional)
• 1 Jalapeño, finely diced (optional)

Method

1. Put the diced red onion in the bottom of the bowl and squeeze the juice of one lime over it. Leave it there while you do everything else — ten minutes in acid takes the raw bite out of raw onion.
2. Drain and rinse the beans until the water runs clear, and shake them properly dry.
3. Tip the beans, corn and bell pepper into the bowl. Add the olive oil, cumin, smoked paprika and salt, and the juice of the second lime.
4. Toss it all together and taste it. It will want more lime and more salt than you expect — this is a dish that lives on acid.
5. Tear the cilantro in at the end, and fold the avocado through last so it stays in pieces.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

The onion sitting in lime juice while you make the rest. Ten minutes of nothing turns the sharpest ingredient in the bowl into the best one.

🧒 For the kids

This is the recipe to hand over completely. Draining, tipping, squeezing limes, tearing cilantro, tasting and deciding — every step is theirs, and it comes out right.

🌿 From the garden

Cilantro bolts the moment it gets hot — sow a short row every three weeks through the summer.

🥡 Leftovers

Keeps 3 days and is better on day two, though add the avocado fresh.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.