Mango Prosciutto Salad with Lime and Basil Dressing, with AWNY Junior Writer Chloé Wadia

WOW is your ultimate reaction once eating this salad. It’s an explosion of flavours, cuisines, colours and a perfect blend of sweet, salty, sour, spicy. It’s a great lunch for one or a side salad at a big dinner event.

This is my new favourite salad! It’s a great lunch to bring to work, or a perfect side salad for dinner. It’s very summery, and is the big bang of flavours. There’s so much buzzing in your mouth, but not too much to the point where it’s overwhelming. Plus, it’s a really beautiful salad too! I love how it combines loads of different cuisines – Italian from the basil and prosciutto, South American from the lime and mango, and the chili flakes are from all over the world.

In this salad, we use mangoes, bell peppers, cucumber (not pictured above), limes, basil, prosciutto and a couple of chili flakes. Prosciutto and mango doesn’t seem like an obvious flavour pairing, but oh my word it tastes good.

It’s a gorgeous contrast – the saltiness of the ham along with the sweet-tartness of the mango.

I don’t recommend using any other ham – prosciutto is best.

How do I cut a mango?

Cutting the mangoes is the hardest part of the recipe. I recommend cutting the sides off, leaving the pit. With the sides cut off, cut cubes by slicing vertically, then horizontally. You’ll get little cubes, just gently pull them off and place them in a bowl. Make sure you don’t lose any mango!

Once you’ve chopped the mango, bell pepper and cucumber, place in a bowl and make the dressing. Now, when I say dressing, I mean lime juice mixed with a tiny bit of water and finely chopped basil leaves.

It’s the laziest “dressing” you’ll ever make!

Whisk together lime and water, chop up some fresh basil leaves and combine. Add the dressing to the salad and mix in a  bowl

Transfer to a large plate and add prosciutto – lightly combine, but don’t mix too hard, otherwise the prosciutto will clump and stick. Serve and enjoy! This is a great, quick lunch (only if you’ve chopped the mango in advance), an elegant side salad at dinner, or a lazy dinner along with kale chips.

I hope you all love this summery, amazing mango salad! It really is so easy and delicious. 

Ingredient list and instructions below.

For 4 people (as a side salad):

Ingredients

• 2 medium mangoes
• ½ capsicum (bell pepper)
• 1 baby cucumber
• 2 limes
• 20 basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon water
• 2-3 large pieces of prosciutto, ripped

Method

1. Cube the mango as instructed earlier. 
2. Chop the cucumber and capsicum. 
3. Combine the mango, capsicum and cucumber in a bowl. 
4. Make the dressing: juice the limes and add the water.
5. Whisk in the chopped basil, then combine the dressing with the salad.
6. Transfer to a plate and add the prosciutto. 
7. Enjoy!