Avocado and Walnut Salad

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you have spent lovely holidays and a wonderful New Year’s Eve. I also hope you haven’t exaggerated with rich festive food and drinks, but if you did, switching to healthy and simple recipes might help you recover from the recent indulgences or at least make you feel better.

The avocado and walnut combination is a recent discovery, inspired by Shizuoka Gourmet’s blog, and to be precise, by his creative wife’s bentos. Her avocado, mayonnaise and walnuts salad looked appetising, simple and proved a very interesting combination of flavours and textures. Apart from the obvious crunchy texture, walnuts provide a slight bitterness, which counterbalances the mellow avocado taste. The cucumber I have decided to add lightened the dish without modifying the flavours. Apart from the wonderful flavour, this salad is packed with blood pressure-lowering potassium, anti-oxidants, has a high fiber content, vitamins and even though it does contain a dash of mayonnaise, it is a very pleasant change from the heavy dishes I have recently exaggerated with. In short, this simple salad is a delicious and healthy side-dish, ideal for this time of the year. Robert-Gilles, please thank your wife for one more culinary inspiration.

Before I pass to the recipe I would love to say how proud and happy I was to learn Ping from Ping’s Pickings has tested my simple Last Minute Crackers recipe, making gorgeous star- and tree – shaped crackers. Click here to see how wonderfully she used up her puff pastry cuttings. Thank you, Ping, for this New Year’s gift!

Preparation: 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves two as a side-dish):

1 avocado

10 cm fresh cucumber

5 walnut kernels (+more 2-3 for decoration)

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

Tabasco

Worcestershire sauce

salt, pepper

Cut up the avocado and the cucumber into bite-sized pieces.

Chop up the walnuts.

Mix the mayonnaise, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper

Combine the sauce with the walnuts, cucumber and avocado.

Serve chilled.

 

 

50 Replies to “Avocado and Walnut Salad”

  1. Happy New Year Sissi. I tried to comment on previous entries recently, but there appears to be some glitch with wordpress. Maybe this will show up. I would LOVE to make this salad, but alas I am extremely allergic to avocado… Just imagining how good this would taste makes me want to eat something. yum yum yum

    1. Happy New Year, Zsuzsa! I’m sorry, there was something wrong with comments settings. I have no idea how it happened, but I have already fixed it! I’m so sorry for your allergy! I’m sure however cucumber and walnut taste great together too.

  2. Happy New Year Sissi! I just love the spicy add-ons to the dressing for this salad – tobasco and worcestershire sauce – how great! And, yes, agreed about the overindulgences and cheers to getting back on track! ;). Thanks Sissi – avocado and walnut is a beautiful and delicious combination.

    1. Happy New Year, Kelly! I am happy you like my spicy non-Japanese additions to this combination πŸ˜‰ It’s a bit difficult to get back to normal life after the holidays, especially with lots of leftovers in the fridge πŸ˜‰

  3. Growing up in California avocado are part of my regular diet. This sounds like a pleasant change of pace recipe for me.

    Are avocados easy to obtain for you?

    1. Thank you, Sportsglutton. Avocados are very easy to get in Europe in every supermarket. They are very cheap, even organic ones, but good avocados are not easy to get and even if you buy at the same source, it’s like a roulette: you never know if they are good or bad because shops change often their exotic fruits suppliers without checking the quality.

  4. After indulging in too many treats during the Christmas season (basically all of December and the first week in January) I’m going to be eating much more sensibly for a good long while so the idea of dishes with mayonnaise and avocados seem too rich for me to consider. πŸ™‚

    I visited Ping’s site and oohed and aahed over the stars and trees. I even know where to buy the cookie cutters to use with your wonderful cheese cracker recipe.

    1. I think I’m not ready to steer away from avocados even after indulgences πŸ˜‰ I am addicted. I don’t put much mayonnaise (1/2 tablespoon per person), but even if I wanted to get rid of it I cannot imagine a good substitute here. The avocado, walnuts and mayonnaise seem to me a perfect combination. It would be like having a hard-boiled egg without mayonnaise (an obligatory addition for me!).
      Thank you! I am happy you liked Ping’s beautiful crackers! I will go and see if I can have some Christmas tree cutters on sales now for next Christmas πŸ™‚ Her trees are simply too cute!

      1. I love avocados as well and indulge in them in sushi rolls, as avocado dip or in toasted chicken and bacon sandwiches … all pretty rich. πŸ™‚

        We have a bulk food chain in Canada, called Bulk Barn, and they had lovely miniature cookie cutters. When I saw them a week or so ago while shopping for a gingerbread man, woman and tree to cut my sugar cookies with, I wondered what someone would do with such small cutters … everything from little pigs to snowflakes. Now I know. πŸ™‚

        1. Well, I try to convince myself avocados are very healthy and contain the good fats we apparently need πŸ™‚ I have added cucumber here in order to eat less avocado though, because I know is a high-calorie vegetable and I never mind bits of cucumbers in any salad.
          I still have some strange cookie cutters I don’t know what to do with (I love buying kitchen gadgets and accessories) but only stars were Christmasy.

    1. Thank you, Sylvia. I cannot get rid of mayonnaise here, alas… Just a tablespoon, but this salad desperately needs it!

  5. Very unusual combination. Lot of good nutrients in this dish, great way to recharge and repair the body. I avoid avocado but I should get to know avocado better I suppose.

    1. Thank you so much, Mr. Three-Cookies. I find spiced avocado pleases almost everyone (Tabasco is a great company). At the beginning my first attempts to prepare avocado were weird. i found it bland, but now I’m addicted.
      Thank you once more for your kind message and sorry again for the technical problems. I think my settings changed automatically to the default ones at the beginning of the year! Strange…

  6. Ooh, I love avocadoes and this sounds like a simple, yet delicious salad with the walnuts and cucumbers! Plus I like the touch of spice πŸ™‚

  7. Happy 2012 Sissi! I am all parties out and can’t wait to get back to some normalcy! I absolutely LOVE avocados, walnuts covered in a creamy sauce is also my favorite, though I’ve not had them combined, but what can go wrong right? I hope you have a wonderful new year and can’t wait to see more!

  8. Awww … thanks for the mention. I’m glad I’ve made a good start for your new year πŸ™‚ I’m actually going to BUY more pastry just to make it … forget leftovers!
    And I LOVE avocados! This is going to be my lunch today … in fact, I’m gonna run out and get some right now. Oh yum! See how easily my tastebuds gets tickled? This is so dangerous … luckily this one’s healthy and low fat. πŸ˜€

    1. Ping, you cannot imagine what a pleasure it was for me! I am very happy you like the idea of my salad πŸ™‚

    1. Thank you so much, Shilpa. I am glad to see you here! It’s quite healthy for such a nourishing salad πŸ™‚

  9. Hi Sissi, this reminds me a little of a “soft” waldorf salad (soft by way of the avocado), which normally has celery and apple inside. Well… when I talk about it like that it doesn’t really sound similar at all but when I first saw your delightful looking salad, that’s the first thing I thought πŸ™‚ I have to say that I have indulged rather a lot during my holidays so far. I’ll need to start up a new year’s diet in earnest when I return!

    1. Thank you so much, Charles. I have heard about Waldorf salad, but have never had it. I also try changin my diet after the holidays… I feel so heavy! So I understand you are still in Sweden! Have a lovely snowy time!

      1. Thanks Sissi! Just now I fulfilled a lifelong dream of jumping into a giant snow-drift and sinking down a long, long way! Happy days πŸ˜€

  10. Happy New Year, Sissi! This is truly the time for the salads (I think I’ve had way way way too much food on the holidays) and like the tanginess of this one! πŸ™‚

  11. Happy New Year 2012, Sissi! Wishing you more great years and food to come!
    I want to eat your avocado salad with taco chips! I`m now crazily addicted to guacamole and I have it like twice every week. The seasoning in your salad with the walnut and cucumber really sounds tempting for me. Yum yum yum!

    1. Thank you so much, Arudhi. I am also addicted to guacamole… (Now that I read your comment I think I will make some for tonight!) Happy New Year to you too!

    1. Thank you so much, Robert-Gilles and you are welcome. I take so much inspiration from your blog and you help me so much in the Japanese food and cuisine discovery, I will never thank you enough. (Is “Dragon” a kind nickname for a lady in Japan? πŸ˜‰ )

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