Bunches of Crunches!

This salad has been around for years and is a potluck and picnic staple. People love the crunchiness of the salad coupled with the tangy sweetness of the dressing. Some of the ingredients have changed a little over the past decades, to reflect our more health-conscious eating habits. Avocado, mango and edamame (soybeans) have been added, and they provide pinpoints of flavor against the crunchy background of the ramen noodles.

Those of you who have not dealt much with either avocados or mangoes, please see the Quick Tip to learn how to easily process these two stone fruits. Yes, even though it looks like a vegetable, avocado is actually a fruit. It is classified together with peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries and mangoes as being a stone fruit, because it has a large pit, or stone, inside.

If you are looking for a light and refreshing salad to serve your family and guests, or perhaps you need a crowd-pleasing dish to take to a social gathering, this salad is one you should consider. It transports easily and, unlike salads that are bound with mayonnaise, it is safe to take this salad outdoors in the summer heat without any danger of salmonella bacteria breeding in it and causing party-goers to become ill from food poisoning.

USE THE RED NEXT PAGE LINK BELOW FOR THE RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS.

Quick Tip:  In regard to peeling and pitting the avocado, you don’t need to peel it. Just cut it in half, remove the pit, then make a grid work of slices in the flesh, but not through the skin. Take a spoon and scoop between the skin and the flesh, and you will have easily diced the avocado. This works if you need slices, too. For the mango, you don’t remove the pit from a mango, you remove the mango from the pit! You will need a sharp knife for this. Cut the mango in half, lengthwise, all the way down to the pit so that you have two long, narrow halves. Peel one half and cut a grid work into the flesh. Now take your knife, or sometimes the back of a spoon is easier, and run it between the flesh and the fibrous area around the pit, separating the diced flesh from the pit. Peel the other side and repeat this process.

Recipe and photo courtesy of Ali at Gimme Some Oven