Jicama salad!? Intrigued like me? Don't worry you are not alone. Next, to parsnip, jicama was a vegetable that I have always wanted to try but shied away from picking it up wondering if it would taste any good.
The positive experience with parsnips, after baking the vegan parsnip muffins gave me the courage to pick up a jicama too.
I was cautious and just got one jicama. I Googled for "jicama recipes" and saw a lot of jicama salad recipes. That’s when I found out that jicama was not pronounced as jicama with a "j" but it was actually pronounced as "hicama".
This looks round like a turnip but with brown skin. I was very eager to find out how it tasted. So peeled it, cut it in half and tasted a tiny bit of it. It was nothing like what I had expected it to taste.
It had a light texture and tasted almost like a pear, an Asian pear to be specific. I imagined that it would have the feel and taste of a raw potato. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I browsed a couple of jicama salad recipes and created my own version adding to the already big list. The beauty and taste of the salad are purely dependent on how thinly you can slice the vegetables.
If you have a mandoline slicer collecting dust, this is the time you have to take it out or else you would need a ton of patience and time to slice it with a knife as I did. But I have to say that all the cutting was really worth the time because the salad looked incredible and tasted great.
Recipe
Colorful Jicama Salad Recipe
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 1 jicama peeled, julienned
- 1 cup carrot, peeled and julienned
- ½ cup radish, julienne
- 1 mango ripe, peeled, julienned
- 1 cup julienned cucumber
- 1 cup julienned red pepper
- 1 cup thinly sliced onion
- ½ avocado peeled and cubed
For the dressing:
- 2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- ¼ cup cilantro, finely chopped
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine all the vegetables and set it aside.
- In a small bowl whisk together the dressing ingredients and mix it with the prepared vegetables. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes (preferably in the refrigerator) before serving.
My Notes
- You can omit or include any vegetable of your choice. I wanted the salad to look colorful so tried to include a variety of color. Red cabbage, orange or yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced spinach are some other options.
Taste & Texture
- The jicama gave a nice crunchy texture and the avocados the creaminess. I served individual portions on romaine lettuce leaves and it was all gone in no time.
Priya says
Crunchy salad, looks fabulous..
surkhab says
WOW ! salad looks Delicious and colorful picture... Will try this salad soon