Black Bean and Corn Salad

This black bean and corn salad is a great side dish with any meal! It’s perfect with tacos, on top of a bed of greens, or served with tortilla chips.

I’ve been craving salads like crazy lately! Yesterday, I made this kale salad, and on Saturday, I made this black bean & corn salad! Alex doesn’t usually get too excited when a salad is on the menu, but he liked this one. The trick is to keep things interesting with textures and flavors! This easy salad is a great one to eat by itself, scoop up with chips, pile onto a taco, or mixed with lettuce and other veggies!

Black Bean and Corn Salad Ingredients

To make this salad, you’ll need a few simple ingredients:

• Fresh tomatoes– I love using larger slicing tomatoes, but cherry tomatoes are great, too!
• Black beans– I typically used canned, but you can prepare dried beans if you prefer.
• Corn– Fresh corn on the cob is lovely, but canned or frozen works great, too!
• Avocado– Be sure your avocado is soft and ripe. Unripe avocados don’t have much flavor.
• Fresh cilantro– Don’t try to substitute dried cilantro. Fresh is the best!
• Lime juice– Fresh lime juice is great but you can use bottled juice if that’s what you have on hand.
• Honey or agave– Just a tiny bit of sweetness brings out the flavor in this recipe. Use agave, if vegan.
• Cumin– Dried cumin adds a nice bit of earthly flavor to this recipe.
• Salt– Don’t forget to add salt, to taste!

Tips for making this black bean and corn salad

• You can prep most of this salad ahead of time, but wait to add the avocado and cilantro until you’re ready to serve it.
• If you don’t want to mess with corn on the cob, you can use frozen or canned corn instead.
• You can serve this over a bed of greens, as a side dish for tacos, or with chips!
• Make sure you rinse and drain the black beans before adding them to the salad. You don’t want to add any liquid from the can.

Tips for Perfectly Ripe Avocados

It’s critical that you use a ripe avocado for this recipe. If the avocado isn’t ripe, it doesn’t have much flavor. It also means it’s too firm to get mixed into this salad the way that it should.

I like to ripen my avocado on the countertop. You can speed it up by placing the avocado near bananas or apples. Those fruits give off a gas that causes the avocado to ripen faster. Once your avocado is ripe, you can store it in the fridge to slow down the process. That will help keep it at the perfect ripeness until you’re ready to use it in this black bean and corn salad!

Substitution Ideas

• Feel free to use fresh corn, frozen corn, or canned corn. Fresh corn is my favorite but any kind will work! Just don’t try creamed corn.
• If you don’t have black beans, try substituting pinto beans for a different southwest flavor.
• You can use cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, or tomatoes on the vine. Any type of fresh tomato will be delicious but I don’t recommend using canned tomatoes.

More Black Bean Recipes

• Mexican Black Beans
• Black Bean Enchiladas
• Black Bean Brownie Bites
• Cheesy Black Bean Dip

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This black bean and corn salad is delicious with chips, but it would also be tasty with these vegan enchiladas or these sweet potato and black bean tacos!

We had a bit leftover after lunch, but I ended up snacking on the rest of it throughout the afternoon. I just kept going into the fridge for more bites until it was gone! That’s the sign of a good salad!

How to Store Black Bean and Corn Salad

Avocados tend to quickly turn brown once they’re exposed to oxygen, but the lime juice will help slow this down slightly. If you wanted to make this dish in advance, I’d recommend waiting until you’re almost ready to serve this salad before adding the avocado. But thanks to the lime juice, this salad will last 4-6 hours. Store in the fridge until you’re ready to eat it.

If you’re looking for other not-so-traditional salads, try this spicy Mexican street corn salad! It’s another one of my favorite taco-topping salads!

What’s your favorite type of salad?