Healthy Corn Summer Salad

In the summer, when it’s hot, so hot you want to jump in the freezing Atlantic, I crave salads.

This corn summer salad is one Conor and I made up. We love to experiment in the kitchen, he tells me he wants to be a chef one day.

I realize his desires might change as he grows, he’s only 7 after all, but I try to let him help me as much as he wants to.

This salad is a great one for little helpers, if your children or grandchildren like to help out too.

It’s super easy and can be thrown together with stuff you have on hand.

The base of the salad is sweet corn, straight off the cob.

Corn always reminds me of summertime.

When I was just a little girl, and we lived out in the country, the closest we had for fruits and veg, was a farm stand. I remember my excitement each time my mom said we were gonna pick up sweet corn from this stand. I can still taste this salt and pepper corn. She used to boil it in a big pot and I’d load it with butter. I still have the plastic corn on the cob holders and we use these for our own corn on the cob with the kids. I wish we had a little farm stand like that one in West Andover. I try and take our kids to the farmers’ market as much as possible and we’re growing vegetables in our backyard garden.

I always thought you needed to cook corn, but I was reading The Magnolia Journal (affiliate link) and there was a corn salad in it and you didn’t have to cook the corn. You can take it right off the cob, raw, and let it sit in the salad during the day and marinate. That salad had cheese and tomatoes and dill and was delicious so you should try and pick up a copy.

My salad has no cheese so if you’re gonna take it on a picnic, or have it at a BBQ, where it could sit in the hot sun there’s no worries about it going bad.

The boys and I love cilantro, and Tex-Mex flavors.

So Conor and I thought it would be fun to include this fresh herb and some fruit juices.

I’m delighted how this recipe turned out.

I made a huge bowl in the morning, with Conor, and we brought it out on our friend’s boat, for that night. The corn was tender after marinating in mango, lime and cucumber. It’s a refreshing side with grilled meats or fish, but equally tastes great with tortilla chips.

We like it both ways!

Here’s the recipe below.

The juice of the mango and the lime make it so refreshing. Adding fresh lime zest also intensified the flavor. We’ve already made it so much this summer.

I hope you guys will give this one a try!

I’m packing up and heading to Atlanta early tomorrow morning for the Haven Blog Conference. I’m so honored to be a mentor this year. I’ll be sure to share more when I get home!

You’ll see some posts on social media, but the blog will probably be very quiet until I’m back (except for the link party on Sunday which will be scheduled as normal).

I might try and make a batch of this so Luke and the kids can enjoy it while I’m away.