Skip to main content

Feta, Avocado & Red Pepper Salad with Honey-lime Dressing

Light and filling, packed full of healthy summer flavours

Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Avocado and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,455 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep15 min

Ingredients

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

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Drain and rinse the cannellini beans in a sieve, then set them aside to dry slightly.

  2. Halve the red peppers, remove the seeds and white ribs, and cut the flesh into thin strips.

  3. Shred the half iceberg lettuce finely, wash and dry it, and place it in a large salad bowl.

  4. Squeeze the juice of the 2 limes into a small bowl, then whisk in the honey, Dijon mustard and light olive oil until smooth.

  5. Halve and stone the avocados, scoop out the flesh, and cut it into cubes.

  6. Crumble the feta cheese into small pieces.

  7. Add the beans and red pepper strips to the lettuce, pour over most of the dressing, and toss gently to coat.

  8. Scatter the avocado and feta over the salad, drizzle with the remaining dressing, and serve straight away.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

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.

  1. Avocado + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Avocado + limetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,117 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Lettuce + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,491 recipes

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

  5. Avocado + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (feta cheese, avocado, pepper, beans, lettuce, lime, honey):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Spinachbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against feta cheese, avocado, pepper, beans, lettuce, lime, honey. 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).