Looking for a salad without greens? Try this crunchy and fresh watermelon radish recipe with cucumbers, avocados, feta and lemon vinaigrette.
Lately, I’ve been turning my back on my beloved leafy greens in favor of salads that skip them all together. When you’re like me and your mainstay for countless meals is a salad, it’s totally acceptable to stretch the definition. If you toss something in vinaigrette, it’s a salad. Period.
So if you’ve never found a reason to get excited about radishes, this watermelon radish salad with cucumbers and avocados just might be it. During spring, I crave all things that are crisp, fresh and simple. That’s all. Celebrate really good ingredients and keep it easy.
Radishes are root vegetables in a range of shapes, sizes and colors from white to purple to pink. Their taste is peppery to the point of almost spicy depending on the variety. Often you will see them more as a garnish when they deserve to be the featured ingredient in my opinion.
On the outside watermelon radishes are an unassuming beige color with a pale green band. Then you slice them open, and you understand the reason for their name. They are a vibrant fuchsia that will instantly remind you of the summer fruit of their namesake. Overall they are more mild in flavor compared to other types.
My preference is to slice radishes when I’m eating them raw rather than dicing them or cutting them into wedges. You can do this with a mandolin or a sharp knife and a cutting board. Peeling is not necessary.
Don’t worry about cutting them into perfect rounds. The most important thing is to slice this veggie very thin. As you can tell from the photos in this post, I ended up with two very fat radishes. Their diameter really tested my mandolin. That rustic imperfection is so much more appealing anyway, right?
This is what you need:
This is a great lunch or dinner salad especially when you want some color on the table. And I consider salads without greens as no-cook side dishes too. Or make a meal out of a trio of salads including this heirloom radish salad, a classic green salad with arugula and a white bean salad.
Because there are no leaves in this recipe, the salad does keep in the fridge up to 2 days. After that the radishes and cucumbers will lose their crispness. A warning, the avocados will turn brown even if they are tossed in the lemon vinaigrette, so don’t plan to make this ahead of time.
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