Guacamole is one of my most favorite foods ever, but avocados can get really pricey. So when I’ve got that guac craving I mix up a batch of this simple avocado and tomato salad. It has all the same amazing flavors as guacamole, but with a slightly different ratio of ingredients to make it a bit more budget-friendly. This salad is so good that I love to spoon it over everything–eggs, chicken, fish, green salads, tortilla chips, and sometimes I just scoop it up right out of the bowl with a spoon. 😅

Originally posted 3/31/2010, updated 8/31/2022.

Keeping it Budget-Friendly

Avocados are definitely one of the higher-priced items in the produce aisle, so we’re using Budget Bytes principle #2, Use Ingredients Wisely, to help keep the price of this recipe in check. Whenever you use a higher-priced ingredient make sure to bulk up the recipe with plenty of lower-priced ingredients to help stretch the cost over more servings. For this recipe, I’ve bulked it up with plenty of Roma tomatoes to make those avocados go twice as far.

What Else Can I Add?

I love this salad because it’s not only great as-is, but you can take it in so many other directions. If you want to bulk it up even more by adding some more inexpensive ingredients, try adding some rinsed and drained black beans or thawed frozen corn kernels. You can also make it similar to ceviche by adding some boiled shrimp (whole or chopped).

How to Serve Avocado and Tomato Salad

Whenever I make this salad, I literally put it on everything. It’s good on chicken and fish, I pile it onto scrambled or fried eggs, I scoop it up with tortilla chips, and I also use it as a topper for a big bowl of salad. And sometimes I just serve it on my plate with dinner as its own stand-alone side dish!

How Long Does it Last?

To be honest, I’ve always eaten this entire batch within about 2-3 days, so I’m not sure how it holds up past that point. The lime juice in the salad helps keep the avocados from turning too brown, although their color does become less vibrant as it sits in the refrigerator and everything does soften a bit. That being said, the flavors in the salad begin to blend as it refrigerates and I think it’s absolutely wonderful the next day! So, if I were making this for company I’d definitely assemble it just before serving. If I was making it for myself I’d happily gobble up the leftovers over the next couple of days.

How to Make Avocado and Tomato Salad – Step by Step Photos

For this recipe, you’ll need 3 avocados, 3 small tomatoes, ¼ of a red onion, 1 clove of garlic, ¼ bunch of cilantro, 1 lime, and one jalapeño (oops, forgot to add that one to the pic!). 

Dice the avocado and tomatoes. Finely dice the red onion and jalapeño (seeds removed). Mince the garlic, and roughly chop the cilantro. Add the avocado, tomato, jalapeño, onion, and garlic to a large bowl. Juice the lime and add 1 Tbsp of the juice to the bowl along with 1 Tbsp olive oil, and ¼ tsp salt.

Give everything a brief stir to combine, then taste and add more salt or lime if desired. I ended up using ½ tsp salt and 2 Tbsp lime juice total.

Serve the salad with your favorite meal or just enjoy it straight out of the bowl (with or without chips)!

The post Avocado and Tomato Salad appeared first on Budget Bytes.

This Mediterranean pasta salad recipe is bursting with fresh flavor! Mix up a batch as an easy side dish or quick lunch.

Here’s a colorful, fresh recipe that’s ideal for summer or anytime: Mediterranean pasta salad recipe! This instantly became a favorite summer side dish with its zingy, bright flavors. Imagine: cool cucumber, juicy tomatoes and peppery arugula, mixed with chewy pasta and salty pops of feta cheese. Hearty sundried tomato gives it an even more irresistible quality to each bite. We served it at a cookout where it got rave reviews, and leftovers are equally as tasty as a lunch idea! This one quickly jumped to the top of our favorite pasta salad recipes.

Ingredients in Mediterranean pasta salad

The concept of pasta salad is an American invention. The first macaroni salad recipe was published in 1914, and it’s spawned loads of variations since then! Mediterranean pasta salad is a thoroughly American concept starring flavors inspired by the region: tomatoes, cucumber, and feta cheese. Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this Mediterranean pasta salad recipe:

• Fusilli (spirals) or other short-cut pasta
• Cucumber
• Cherry tomatoes
• Sundried tomatoes
• Artichoke hearts
• Red onion
• Baby arugula
• Feta cheese
• Mediterranean dressing: lemon juice, red wine vinegar, garlic, Italian seasoning, olive oil

The basic idea is simple: boil the pasta, chop the veggies, then toss with a simple Mediterranean-style dressing. It takes about 30 minutes to whip up, and it’s well worth the time.

Use any type of short cut pasta

This Mediterranean pasta salad works with any type of short-cut pasta noodle. We like it best with spirals, but it’s just as good with bowties or penne. Whatever the case, make sure to cook the pasta to al dente (see below). Here are a few other pasta shape ideas for mixing it up with this pasta salad:

• Spirals (fusilli)
• Bowties (farfalle)
• Penne
• Shells (conchiglie)
• Orecchiette
• Gemelli
• Gigli

Tips for cooking pasta to al dente

Al dente means “to the bite” in Italian: pasta that’s tender with a firm center. It’s extremely important to cook the pasta to al dente for a pasta salad: overcooked pasta turns out rubbery, soft and unappetizing. (Interestingly, it also has less nutrients and makes you less full.) Here are some tips on how to cook pasta to al dente:

• Set your timer a few minutes before the package instructions indicate. The timing on many pasta packages indicates to cook the pasta too long. Start taste testing the pasta a few minutes before the package says to.
• Taste test and look for small white fleck at the core. Catch it right when there’s a small white fleck at the core, or just when it disappears: then immediately drain the pasta. For pasta salad, we like to rinse the pasta in cool water until it cools down enough to make into the salad.

Make ahead and storage for Mediterranean pasta salad

This Mediterranean pasta salad recipe tastes best the day it is made, as as flavor-packed side dish. But you can also make it in advance and refrigerate until serving, or keep it refrigerated as a lunch idea to munch on throughout the week. Here are a few tips for storage:

• Mediterranean pasta salad lasts for up to 5 days in the refrigerator. It’s ideal for making ahead or healthy lunches throughout the week.
• Refresh the flavors before serving. Bring the salad to room temperature. Then stir in a drizzle of olive oil and a bit more crumbled feta cheese. You may or may not need an extra pinch of salt.

More pasta salad recipes

Love pasta salads? Us too. Try these fun pasta salad ideas:

• Try this Classic Pasta Salad
• Go for Pesto Pasta Salad or Easy Tortellini Salad
• Pair tomatoes and basil for Caprese Pasta Salad
• Opt for zingy Greek Pasta Salad
• Try Shrimp Pasta Salad

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Classic Pasta Salad

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Pesto Pasta Salad

03

Caprese Pasta Salad

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Greek Pasta Salad

This Mediterranean pasta salad recipe is…

Vegetarian. For vegan or plant-based, omit the feta cheese and add a bit more salt.

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A Couple Cooks - Recipes worth repeating.

From pandemic pet project to printed and published, it’s been quite a journey bringing my ninth cookbook into the world. Born at a time when life came to a screeching halt, when the very future of cookbooks in general was in jeopardy, it seemed like the absolute stupidest thing to pursue.

Between supply chain issues, shortages, and grocery delivery mishaps, I couldn’t even count on having adequate ingredients to follow a simple recipe, let alone develop another hundred of my own. Let’s not forget that dinner parties were off the table, so there was little need for large format meals generally set to feed anywhere from 6 – 12 at a time.

The Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet: A Plant-Based Guide to One-Pan Wonders

Still, I persisted. Not out of optimism that things would get better or some greater vision of the future, but for a lack of it. In a time of unprecedented tragedies one after another, this was all I knew how to do, the only thing that provided any modicum of comfort. By cooking, crafting photos, creating my own narrative, I could escape that reality just outside my kitchen door.

Chickpea Pan Pie

The Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet is a genuine pandemic baby, venturing forth into the wilderness of civilization for the first time with wide eyes. For all the delays, near misses, gambles, and standard publishing frustrations, I think the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Now that we’re gathering together again to break bread, these are the recipes I subconsciously created as a victory lap. This book could only exist in this particular moment.

Low-Country Broil

Getting down to the brass tacks here, The Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet is a down to earth guide for turning out complete plant-based meals using a standard, no-frills sheet pan. Blending nostalgia with a taste for adventure, wholesome ingredients with indulgent flavors, easy prep with stunning results, it’s everything I craved but couldn’t otherwise find. Veganism is finally taking off as a mainstream movement and sheet pan cooking is all the rage, but why had no one combined the two yet? I took that personally.

Nacho Mamma Loaded Tortilla Chips

Thank you for everyone that made this possible. Book #9 is every bit as incredible as book #1, given the particularly volatile nature of the publishing industry these days. Who knows if this will indeed be the last, but even so, I’m proud of everything inside these pages. I hope they can bring comfort and joy to you table, too.

The post Holy Sheet! It’s a Book Release! appeared first on BitterSweet.

This blueberry crumble recipe is a favorite! The nostalgic summer dessert stars a sweet tart fruit filling topped with buttery crumbles.

Looking for a blueberry dessert that’s as perfect as they come? This Blueberry Crumble recipe is the perfect nostalgic treat for ending a meal. It’s got a juicy, fruity berry filling seasoned with cinnamon, allspice and lemon zest, topped with buttery, crispy crumbles. Add melty vanilla ice cream and it’s truly a sublime treat. In fact, we’ve stopped making blueberry crisp all together because this crumble is next level.

Ingredients in this blueberry crumble recipe

This blueberry crumble recipe is our favorite alternative to a crisp, though we love both nearly equally. The difference between a crumble and a crisp? Technically, a crisp has oats or nuts in the topping and a crumble does not: it’s essentially butter, flour and sugar. The lines have blurred in modern definitions of these recipes, so often you’ll see crumbles with oats. As much as we love oats, we went with the classic definition of a crumble here: and it was well worth it. Here’s what you’ll need for this blueberry crumble:

• Blueberries
• Granulated sugar
• Cornstarch
• Lemon zest
• Unsalted butter
• All purpose flour
• Cinnamon and allspice
• Baking powder
• Salt

Use fresh or frozen blueberries

Don’t feel like you have to have a load of fresh blueberries for this one! This recipe calls for 4 cups fresh blueberries: which we had on hand from blueberry picking in Michigan. Don’t have access to that many blueberries? You can use frozen too! Add them to the recipe frozen: no need to defrost. Keep in mind that store-bought frozen berries can be a little more tart than fresh berries, so you may want to add a hint more sugar to the filling.

There are special precautions to take for baking with blueberries in cobbler, muffins and scones (the berries can bleed and dye the baked goods purple!). But with a crumble, there’s no risk: the berries don’t mix with the dry goods. This crumble is also a great place to use fresh blueberries that you froze to preserve them: just throw them into the pan frozen.

A note on the butter

This recipe calls for 7 tablespoons butter: which is an odd number. If you bake a lot, you’ll notice most crumble and crisp recipes call for either 6 tablespoons of butter or 8 tablespoons. But trust us! Seven is the magic number here, and it makes for absolutely perfect crumbles.

Want to make this blueberry crumble vegan? Just use vegan butter in place of standard butter: it works like a charm.

How to serve blueberry crumble

Once you’ve got your beautiful blueberry crumble, you’ll find it tastes great right out of the pan. But like most crumble recipes, it tastes even better topped with vanilla ice cream! The contrast of rich cream against the tart berries is perfection. Here are a few of our favorite toppings for this stunning dessert:

• Vanilla ice cream: purchased or homemade
• Whipped cream: homemade or yogurt whipped cream (or vegan whipped cream)
• Creme fraiche: purchased or homemade
• Cream sauce: try Creme Anglaise for an interesting twist!

Leftover storage info

Want to save this blueberry crumble? This dessert saves well at room temperature, refrigerated or frozen.

• Keep the crumble for 1 day loosely covered at room temperature. This helps to maintain the crumble texture.
• Refrigerate for up to 3 days. It holds up pretty well in the fridge, and tastes even better when reheated.
• Freeze up to 3 months. Freeze for up to 3 months in a sealed container. Reheat it in a 350 degree oven until bubbly.

More blueberry desserts

This blueberry crumble is a favorite of our top blueberry desserts. Here are a few more to try:

• Try a stunning Blueberry Galette
• Go for Easy Blueberry Cake
• Grab “Magic” Blueberry Cobbler
• Opt for Blueberry Crisp

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Blueberry Galette

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Easy Blueberry Cake

03

Best Blueberry Crisp Recipe

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17 Tasty Blueberry Desserts

This blueberry crumble recipe is…

Vegetarian. For vegan and plant-based, use vegan butter.

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A Couple Cooks - Recipes worth repeating.