• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Forager Chef

Foraging and Cooking Mushrooms, Wild and Obscure Food

  • Home
  • About
  • Mushrooms
    • Mushroom Species Archive
    • Posts by Species
      • Other
        • Lobster Mushrooms
        • Shrimp of the Woods
        • Truffles
        • Morels
        • Shaggy Mane
        • Hericium
        • Puffball
      • Polypores
        • Hen of the Woods
        • Dryad Saddle
        • Chicken of The Woods
        • Cauliflowers
        • Ischnoderma
        • Beefsteak
      • Chanterelles
        • Black Trumpet
        • Red Cinnabar
        • Yellowfeet
      • Gilled
        • Matsutake
        • Russula / Lactarius
          • Candy Caps
          • Saffron Milkcap
          • Indigo Milkcap
        • Fairy Rings
      • Boletes
        • Porcini
        • Leccinum
        • Slippery Jacks
    • Recipes
      • Fresh
      • Dried
      • Preserves
    • The Basics
  • Plants
    • Plant Archive
    • Leafy Green Recipes
      • Leafy Green Plant Varieties
    • Wild Fruit
      • Wild Plums
      • Highbush Cranberry
      • Wild Grapes
      • Rowanberries
      • Wild Cherries
      • Aronia
      • Elderberry
      • Nannyberry
      • Wild Blueberries
    • Wild Herbs and Spices
    • From The Garden
    • Nuts, Roots, Tubers and Grains
    • Stalks and Shoots
  • Meat
    • Four-Legged
    • Poultry
    • Fish/Seafood
    • Offal
    • Charcuterie
  • Recipes
    • Pickles, Preserves, Etc
    • Fermentation
    • Condiments
    • Appetizers
    • Soup
    • Salad
    • Side Dishes
    • Entrees
    • Baking
    • Sweets
  • Video
    • The Wild Harvest
    • Foraging Videos
    • Lamb and Goat Series
    • YouTube Tutorials
  • Press
    • Podcasts
  • Work
    • Public Speaking
    • Charity and Private Dinners
    • Forays / Classes / Demos

Purslane, Avocado, and Cucumber Salad

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Purslane, avocado, and cucumber salad with cilantro recipeIt’s summer: high purslane season here, and that means I’m eating it every day, sometimes for two meals a day, mostly in cold salads like this one. I like purslane cooked, but most of the time in the summer when I eat it, I just want to wash it, chop it, and call it a day.

This purslane, cucumber, and avocado salad is a good example of something I’ll make after weeding some from the garden. The ingredients might change a bit here and there, but the basic proportions are the same. about 1:1:1 purslane and other ingredients by volume. For this one I was feeling the green and white colors, and cool flavors, but you could easily throw a few tomatoes or something else in there to add juice to the natural dressing, along with some acid.

Foraged purslane, cucumber, and avocado salad with cilantro

Note how everything is about the same size, and can fit on a spoon.

Keep everything about the same size

Whatever you do, one of the keys for just tossing together little slaws and salads like this out of random things in the fridge is trying to keep everything around the same size. You want everything to be able to fit on a spoon, so the guest can taste all of the flavors you’ve put into the salad. For this, the purslane was nice and tender so I cut it into about 1 inch pieces, but it could be cut finer if you like. 1 or 1/2 inch pieces are pretty nice though, as they allow you to keep as many of the purslane leaves whole as possible, while being able to just slice them up quickly and not spend time picking tiny clusters of leaves apart, which can be a little putsy.

Purslane or Portulaca oleracea, a delicious edible garden weed

Lots of food happens when the garden gets weeded for purslane.

Purslane, or verdolagas are loved in Latin America, so this salad with it’s avocado, lime and cilantro (or your favorite herb) reflects that, but you certainly steer it in another direction, probably Mediterranean first, nixing the avocado, and adding some sliced red onion, olives, feta, and mint or basil. Once you get the hang of throwing some chopped purslane in a bowl with a few other things and seasoning it up,  you’ll come up with all sorts of ideas.

Purslane, avocado, and cucumber salad with cilantro recipe

Purslane, avocado, and cucumber salad with cilantro recipe
Print Recipe
0 from 0 votes

Purslane, Cucumber, and Avocado Salad

Latin American inspired purslane salad with avocado, cucumber, fresh cilantro and lime
Prep Time15 mins
Course: Appetizer, Side Dish
Cuisine: Mexican
Keyword: Purslane, Salad
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  • 3 oz washed and dried purslane about 1.5 cups, cut into 1 inch pieces, any larger tough stems removed *see note*
  • ½ a large cucumber
  • 1 large avocado
  • Small handful of fresh sliced cilantro dill, or mint, to taste
  • Kosher salt to taste
  • Extra virgin olive oil to taste
  • Fresh lime or lemon juice to taste
  • Fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Cut the cucumber into ¼’s the long way and remove the seeds with a knife, then cut the quarters in half, and cut into 1 inch segments.
  • Dice the avocado into ½ inch cubes.
  • Combine all ingredients, season to taste.
  • Taste the seasoning and correct as needed for citrus, herbs, and salt, then serve cold.
  • The salad will start to wilt after about 15 minutes.

Notes

Tough Purslane 
If your purslane is larger or seems a little tough, blanch it for a few seconds to tenderize it, then refresh in cold water, drain very well or spin dry and go from there. There will be a color change, but it's worth it if the purslane is tough. 

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Related

Previous Post: « Fermented Grape Leaves
Next Post: Wild Berry Frango »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Categories

Forager Chef

Forager Chef

Instagram

foragerchef

Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun var Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun variation I did on the house dessert of a little restaurant I was at for a time. 

Don’t be surprised if you smell like maple syrup a few hours after eating it. Using ground dried golden chanterelles is another variation that’s on my list to try. 

Link in bio to see how to make your own. 

#candycaps #treslechescake #myteethfellout #wildmushrooms #wildfoodlove
ARISE #fungimancer #frostbite #morels #tisthes ARISE 

 #fungimancer 
#frostbite #morels #tistheseason #mushroomhunting #winter #offseasontraining
Big thanks🙏 to all of you who showed your suppo Big thanks🙏 to all of you who showed your support with the first line of spirits @ida_graves_distillery and I collaborated on. 

Brock did a great job wrangling the wild things, and we have plenty of fun ideas in store (think aging nocino in barrels, new flavor combos, etc). If you’re in the Twin Cities and still need some, the amaro is #soldout but @ombibulousmn has nocino, and should have the spruce  liquor (goes down like pine gin) soon. Thank you!

#distillery #foragedcocktails #nocino #craftspirits #drinkatree #mnspirits #smallbatch #godscountry
Let’s talk roadkill. Honestly, roadkill is too s Let’s talk roadkill. Honestly, roadkill is too specific a term for me—I don’t limit myself to vehicular-harvested meat. 

However you feel about the topic, grab some popcorn and head over to the comment section on my blog (link in bio) for the 🔥personal stories from readers have shared from around the world. 

There’s the kid who brought home a nutria after school, a wife getting 4 deer with the same car, a train hitting a herd of elk, a bear named squish, living in a house with weasels, and more. 

#budgetgourmet #gleaning #scavenging #meatismeat #roadkill #freefoods #finderskeepers #wastenotwantnot
Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberr Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberry cultivars (3 types!) on me before the last snowfall and I honestly don’t even know where to start after processing them. I’d already made jams and hot sauce already and I have enough for a year. 😅

Great time to practice the cold-juice which ensures the juice isn’t bitter. 

Anyone else have any ideas? 

You can still find some on the shrubs if the birds didn’t get them up by the north shore. 

#highbushcranberry #winterforaging #birdberries #sweetnectar #foragerproblems #juiceme #embarassmentofriches #wildfoodlove
100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw v 100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw vegan snacks, but when I read about Euell Gibbon’s wild hackberry candy bars I had to try them. The  originals were just crushed hackberries and hickory nuts, but, I’ve read that Euell grew to dislike the crunch of hackberry seeds later in life. 

Here’s the thing though, if you sift the hackberry flour, you get a fun texture, with no worries about cracking a tooth. 

These are equal parts ground hackberries, dried wild blueberries, and hickory nuts, with a splash of maple syrup to bind.

The end product is a shelf stable, nutrient-packed bite filled with protein, carbohydrates, fats and natural sugars infinitely adaptable to your local landscape.

The texture is chewy and nougat-like, and now I’m curious to see how they’d perform baked in recipes that use frangipane or almond paste. 

#euellgibbons #energybars #hackberry #crushin #paleobreakfast #tradionalfood #wildfoodlove #rawfoods
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Footer

Privacy

  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro & The Genesis Framework

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.