Fresh Summer Corn Salad Recipe

Sweet fresh corn, crisp cucumber, creamy avocado, and bright tomato come together along with a cilantro vinaigrette in this Summer Corn Salad.  Long live summer with this tasty side dish that combines the best parts of the season.  Serve it with your next grill night.

What is Summer Corn Salad?

It's a fresh corn salad made with fresh corn, tomatoes, avocado, and cucumber. Traditionally salads are made with lettuce or other leafy greens, but I'm here to tell you that you won't miss them in this salad.  

This chopped summer salad with corn has all of the flavors without the leafy greens and will hold longer when prepared ahead of time or when you have leftovers than salads made with fresh greens.

You will love it served with some smoked pulled pork or some grilled shrimp tacos.

Why You Will Love This Recipe

• So easy! All you really need to do is prep the ingredients, blend the dressing, and toss it all together!
• A healthy summer salad! Packed with fresh veggies and healthy fats, this salad is good for you but also tastes great!
• A fresh-tasting side dish to go with all your summer grilling favorites.
• Perfect for potlucks and parties! This corn and avocado salad is my go-to for feeding a crowd! I know everyone will love it and it doesn't require all that much time to prepare.

Ingredients You Need

This salad mostly uses fresh ingredients along with a few pantry staples for the Cilantro vinaigrette. For this recipe you'll need:

• Fresh corn on the cob: Fresh corn is the key to a great-tasting corn salad in the summer. If fresh corn isn't available you can still make corn salad using frozen corn but while delicious, it's simply NOT the same!
• Cucumber: The crispness of cucumbers works well with the remaining ingredients in this salad.
• Cherry tomatoes: Slightly sweet and plenty juicy, these little tomatoes are my favorite to use in summer salads. A simple swap is to use Roma tomatoes instead to make this summer corn and tomato salad.
• Avocado: Creamy avocado goes perfectly with the other ingredients in this dish.
• Cilantro: The central ingredient to making the bright and flavorful cilantro dressing for corn salad.
• Olive oil: The best healthy oil to use for salad dressings. If possible use extra virgin olive oil.
• Lime: Fresh lime juice adds a nice bit of acid to the dressing making it bright with flavor.
• Garlic: Fresh garlic gives the dressing more depth of flavor.
• Salt: When it comes to seasoning - I always choose Redmond Real Salt.  It is simply the best.  Their new flavor grinders are amazing and paired perfectly with this dressing. Use code OHSO for a discount on your next order.

A complete list of ingredients and amounts is located in the recipe card below.

How to Make Corn Avocado Salad

This easy summer salad goes together in just a few steps. Here are the highlights.

1. Cook your corn either in a pot of boiling water or in the microwave.

Pro Tip: To boil the corn, add the husked corn to a large pot, fill it with water, cover and bring to a boil.  Once water is boiling, remove from heat. If you prefer to microwave, wrap the shucked corn in a damp paper towel and place it on a dinner plate.  Microwave for 5 minutes. Remove the paper towel.

2. Prepare the dressing while the corn cooks. Combine the cilantro, olive oil, lime juice, garlic, lemon pepper, garlic salt, and onion salt in a blender.
3. Blend until smooth.
4. Set aside at room temperature until needed. 

5. Dice your veggies. The term "dice" refers to cutting a vegetable into cubes of a specific size  - usually about half an inch.  In this recipe we want all ingredients to be diced to about half an inch.
6. Cut the corn from the cob. Lay it flat on your cutting board and cut straight down, rotate to the flat side, and cut straight down again until all corn is removed.
7. Toss the corn and veggies together.
8. Add the desired amount of dressing.

How to Serve Corn and Tomato Salad

You're going to love this corn avocado salad with tomato all summer long! It's great to serve for BBQs and picnics!

Even better, it's easy to make for a crowd so carry it along to summer potlucks or any party you need to bring an easy dish.

This side dish is PERFECT with a variety of dishes but here are some of our favorites!

• Santa Maria Tri Tip
• Lemon Dill Lamb Kabobs
• Smoked Chicken Breast
• Barbecue Chicken

Tomato corn salad goes great with other summer side dish favorites such as Country Coleslaw, Instant Pot Potato Salad, and this Strawberry Caprese Salad.

Expert Tips

• Making dressings in the blender is a cinch.  Throw all ingredients in the blender for the cilantro vinaigrette and blend until smooth.  On the Blendtec I used the dressing mode.
• Store leftovers in an airtight container for 3-5 days. The acid in the lime should slow down the browning of the avocado though the longer it sits the more likely this may happen.
• Cook the fresh corn by boiling it or if time is short, you can also cook it in the microwave!
• Let it sit! After mixing it together let it chill for about an hour. This time allows the flavor of the vinaigrette to fully infuse the veggies.

FAQs

More Summer Corn Recipes

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