Name: California Avocado Mango Salad
Ingredients: 2 mangos, peeled and cubed; 1 avocado, cubed; 3 cloves of garlic, sliced; ¼ Cup of onion, chopped; ¼ Cup of cilantro, chopped; ½ tsp salt; Add the juice of 1/2 lemon

Why it works: Mango and avocado match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 140 recipes mention both. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: bread

Directions

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate.
Serve chilled with pita bread.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Mango + avocadotop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together140 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together29,030 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Avocado + oniontop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together1,653 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Mango + lemontop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together302 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Garlic + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together8,862 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mangos: Provide sweetness and juicy body that carries the salad's flavour.
Avocado: Adds creamy fat that gives the salad a soft, rich texture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavours and slows browning of the avocado.
Garlic: Contributes sharp, pungent aroma that mellows slightly with chilling.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mango, avocado, garlic, onion):

Limebetter flavor fit
Coconutbetter flavor fit
Cherrybetter flavor fit
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mango, avocado, garlic, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.