Nigerian Salad Recipe – How to Make Your Own
The Nigerian Salad is a special salad recipe native to Nigeria. It is such a unique salad recipe that even if one ingredient is left out, it loses its special taste. This is why Nigerians all over the world always seek this salad recipe in the quest to get the exact taste and richness of the Nigerian Salad. Foreigners who have been lucky to taste this salad also ask for the recipe right after tasting it.
The Nigerian Salad is so filling that it can be eaten as a meal on its own or as a side dish to the various Nigerian Rice Recipes – the Jollof Rice, the Nigerian Fried Rice, the Nigerian Coconut Rice, the Nigerian White Rice and Tomato Stew to name a few. It can also be eaten with the Nigerian Moi Moi. To make the Nigerian Salad with the unique salad taste, you just need to follow the steps detailed below to the letter.
The quantities of ingredients stated are what will give a typical taste of the Nigerian Salad. The ratio of the quantities can be halved or doubled and the same taste will be achieved.
Ingredients:
- 1 medium bunch of Lettuce
- 5 medium-sized Carrots
- 4 small pieces of Irish Potatoes
- 2 medium pieces of Cucumber
- 3 medium Eggs
- 1 415 gram tin of Baked Beans in tomato sauce
- 200 grams of Sweet Corn
- 5 pieces of Plum Tomatoes
- Salad Dressing – The Heinz Salad Cream works best with this salad recipe. A close substitute is the Heinz Caeser Salad Cream. Mayonnaise can be used as a last resort but it needs to be diluted with vegetable oil as it is too thick for the Nigerian Salad recipe.
Before you Prepare the Nigerian Salad:
Wash and cook the Irish potatoes till done. The eggs should also be hard-boiled. To save time, the Irish potatoes and the eggs can be cooked in the same pot as they need almost equal amount of time to get done.
- All the vegetables need to be washed.
- Cut the lettuce into thin shreds.
- Scrape and shred the carrots using a grater.
- Peel and cut the boiled potatoes into sizeable cubes.
- Peel, remove the seeds and cut the cucumber as shown. If you want more green color in your salad, you may peel the cucumber in stripes.
- Remove the seeds from the plum tomatoes and cut into small cubes.
- Place all the cut vegetables in separate containers.
- Open the sweet corn and drain the preservation water. Rinse the seeds and set aside. Also open the baked beans tin and set aside.
- Remove the shells of the hard-boiled eggs, slice with an egg slicer and set aside.
Follow these steps when preparing the Nigerian Salad
- With the exception of the egg, start putting the salad ingredients in small batches into a big salad bowl. You can start with the lettuce, followed by the tomatoes, then potatoes, sweet corn, baked beans, cucumber, carrots then back to lettuce. Repeat the process till all the ingredients are exhausted. This method of making the Nigerian Salad helps the juice from each of the ingredients to seep into others.
- Now, place the sliced eggs on the salad, covering the top.
- Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for at least one hour. This is to give all the Nigerian Salad ingredients time to blend with each other. In addition, the Nigerian Salad is best served chilled.
- Serve with a salad dressing of your choice but as mentioned earlier, the classic Heinz Salad cream works best with the Nigerian Salad.
Notes and Tips.
If you prefer your own salad crunchy, you can substitute the lettuce with cabbage. Instead of taking out the lettuce entirely, you can use the two as the lettuce adds a green color to the salad. Afterall this recipes is not only about the taste but about color too.
The above are the minimum ingredients for making a Nigerian Salad. More ingredients such as boiled macaroni, corned beef, green bell pepper, green peas etc can be added to the Nigerian Salad for varied flavour.
The Nigerian Salad will be good for 24 hours if no salad dressing is added to it.
If you are able to buy a baby cucumber, it may not be necessary to remove the seeds.
Enjoy!