The Corniest Salad You’ll Ever Meet

When corn is in season, there is nothing tastier than grilled corn on the cob. Whether it’s covered in Mexican cheese from Café Habana in New York or purchased from One Love Corn at Toronto’s Harbourfront, these snacks will easily become your day’s highlight. However, cutting the corn off the cob can yield excellent results when you work with Mark Bittman’s Mexican Corn Salad recipe.

This recipe has easily become one of my summer staples. The ingredients aren’t complicated: 4 cobs of corn, 4-5 strips of bacon cut into small pieces, 1/2 pint of cut up grape tomatoes, 1/2 chopped up red onion, an avocado, the juice of 1-2 limes, 1/2 a red chili pepper, salt and cilantro.

Start off by frying up the bacon for a minute, add the red onions and cook until they’re translucent, then add the corn. Cook this for approximately 7 minutes until the corn starts to brown. Believe me, the crispy bits are the tastiest. Watch a kooky video of Mark Bittman making it here.

Let the corn-bacon-onion mixture cool for 5 minutes then transfer it to a bowl. Add in the lime juice, tomatoes, fresh chili peppers, and cilantro. Stir everything together then season with salt to taste. Right before serving you must add in top secret ingredient – avocado. Visually the salad is a treat for the eyes and if you’re anything like me, it’ll be hard not to eat the entire bowl in one sitting.