Black Bean Salsa -Oklahoma Caviar!

Warning! This recipe is highly addictive!

Mr. Wonderful and I made this last night while waiting for baby-back ribs to slow-cook in the oven.  By the time the ribs were done, we weren’t very hungry.

Why, you ask?

Because we ate half a bowl of this stuff.

I love this recipe.  This recipe incorporates many healthy veggies and beans into one magnificent salsa.  My daughter Tori would never eat one of these ingredients alone, but in this dip, she snarfs multiple vegetables down and loves them.

Yes I said “snarfs”, because that’s what you do when you eat Black Bean Salsa.

There are probably many varieties out there of this recipe.  Many southern states that feature Tex-Mex cuisine call it caviar – like Oklahoma Caviar, Texas Caviar, etc.  Each one is a little different.  You can tweak it to whatever you like…substitute pablanos for jalepenos, red onion for green onion, or whatever makes you smile and say Mmmmmm.

This one is my favorite.  Let’s begin.

Start out by chopping one red bell pepper into small cubes.  You really want to dice everything pretty finely for this recipe and kind of uniform in size.

Also finely chop some fresh cilantro.  I use a lot – like at least a cup.  I love cilantro.

Throw them into a large bowl.

Chop up six green onions in fine slices.

Toss them into your bowl as well.

Chop up several roma tomatoes.  Keep in mind that the only thing in the recipe that doesn’t keep well are the tomatoes.  If I make this the night before, I wait to add the tomatoes until an hour before I serve it.  Use about 4 roma tomatoes or 2-3 large beefsteak size tomatoes.

Let the tomatoes join their veggie and herb friends in your mixing bowl.  Also chop up 1-6 jalepenos finely, and by finely, I mean as small as you can get them.  This is the one ingredient it’s okay to have smaller.  I say 1-6 because some people like it really hot.  I used one pretty good size jalepeno, ribs and seeds.  If you like things hotter, spice it up a bit with another one….or four.

Into the bowl with ’em!

I sometimes miss the bowl with a few wayward stragglers do you?  Mr. Wonderful always smiles at my “neatness” when I cook.

Now we need to chop or press in 2 cloves of garlic.

My garlic press has made my life so much easier.  Thanks again Mom.

Spoon in your one small can of chopped olives.

We need to rinse and drain our three cans.  Open up your white shoepeg corn, one can of black beans, and one can of blackeye peas, and put them in your colander.   I always like to rinse off the canning liquid of any canned goods, especially black beans.  That is some nasty canning liquid in there.

Dump them on top of your other chopped veggies.

Pour about one-half to two-thirds bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing over top of all of this , or about one and one-half cups.  You can mix up some dressing yourself, but why?

Now stir everything together really well so that the dressing completely coats all of the vegetables.

Serve with tortilla chips, toast wedges, bagel chips or crackers.

Mmmmm.  I could seriously make this my meal.  This stuff is fabulous.

Oh, if you adore avocado?  Cube some up and throw it in at the last minute.  Delicious!

Wanna eat more than your daily recommended serving of vegetables? Make this recipe, you won’t regret it!

Katie’s Printable Recipe – Black Bean Salsa

Cooking with Love,

~Katie