Avocado & Black Bean Salad at Home

This Avocado & Black Bean Salad is a fresh, savory mix of avocados, tomato, onion, black beans, cilantro, all tossed in a zesty lime blend. Serve this straightforward salad as a light appetizer with chips or pair it with your regular protein.

If you like tasty summer salads that are more than only lettuce and packed with vibrant flavor, check out my Grilled Corn Salad as well as my Red Cabbage Salad and my Roasted Veggie Pasta Salad!

This avocado & black bean salad is the result of several handfuls of random veggies leftover in my fridge. I always seem to have leftover tomato and onion laying around and HATE letting it go to waste. So, one day I threw together all of the random leftovers I could find, and the result was this especially simple salad. A regular here it so much!

It’s loaded with tons of flavor and pleasing fresh ingredients! It is the reliable choice for lunch, a side dish, or even an appetizer! As an added plus, it’s unfussy to make and mixes up fast for an unfussy crowd pleaser!

Worth keeping eating filling salads like this in the summer but honestly, this is savory YEAR ROUND! We also genuinely love this grilled corn salad!

Ingredients you’ll need

This avocado & black bean salad recipe is simple, yet so flavorful! You only need a handful of ingredients to throw it together and it only takes about 10 minutes! See the recipe card below for a list of exact ingredient measurements.

• For the zesty dressing: A combination of lime zest, fresh lime juice, cumin, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper flavors the salad with freshness. You could also use lemon juice in this dish instead.
• Ripe avocado: Adds major creaminess! Use more or less avocado, depending on your preference.
• Tomato: Juicy bursts of sweet tomato flavor are fabulous with the black beans and avocado. Worth keeping cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes in this method.
• Onion: Sweet onion or red onion both work well in this dish. Or use shallot for a milder taste. Green onion also works well!
• Black beans: Canned black beans are convenient and make this salad more filling. They’re packed with fiber, potassium and plant-based protein. You could use other beans such as chickpeas or kidney beans.
• Fresh Cilantro: Adds freshness and color. If you’re not a fan, simply leave it out.

Substitutions and variations

This salad is genuinely unfussy to customize with your go-to ingredients! Here are some suggestions:

• Add corn: When we have sweet corn on hand, Worth keeping to toss some of that in for a quintessentially summer salad. It adds a hint of sweetness that’s a great balance for some of the more savory ingredients. Even canned corn would work well. Red bell peppers are also savory in this!
• Make it spicy: If you’d like to add some heat, mix a dash of cayenne pepper or even sriracha to the dressing. You could also stir a minced jalapeño into the salad.
• Cheese: Sometimes I like to add in crumbled feta cheese or cotija cheese for a creamy, salty, cheesy addition.
• Add protein: if you want to cook this a complete meal, you could add additional protein to it such as my grilled tofu, some grilled chicken or shrimp, or whatever sounds good! You could even add black-eyed peas to cook this a kind of cowboy caviar!

How to cook this black bean avocado salad

This dish could not be easier to whip up, and in only 10 minutes it’s ready-to-go!

Helpful tips

• Ripe avocados are a must for adding creamy texture and great flavor. When it’s ripe, it should feel lightly soft but it will not feel “mushy” to the touch.
• Chop all the ingredients roughly the same size. You want to cut the veggies into smaller pieces so everything distributes better with the beans.
• Taste and adjust the seasoning before serving. You might need extra salt and black pepper depending on the veggies and dressing. Add more to bring out all of the flavor-packed flavors.

Frequently asked questions

Serving suggestions

• This is flavor-packed served as a side salad paired with grilled meats in the summer or with a Mexican dinner.
• Enjoy as an appetizer with from-scratch tortilla chips as a dip.
• Jazz up your salads and use this as a salad booster, spooned over chopped romaine lettuce.
• Serve as a filling for vegan burritos, tofu tacos or these sheet pan quesadillas.

Storage tips

You can make this up to 2 days ahead of time and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. However, add the avocado only before serving. Once the avocado is added, this salad is freshest within about 24 hours.

More salad recipes to try

• Mexican Street Corn Pasta Salad
• Grilled Corn Salad
• Warm Kale Salad
• Tofu Salad