Do you have favorite family Christmas Eve traditions? If you’re in Mexico, you may enjoy a traditional Noche Buena Salad on Christmas Eve. This delicious traditional salad is bright with festive colors. Also, it’s vegan, which means that all of your guests can partake.
There are countless variations on Noche Buena Salad, but almost all include beets. For example, this recipe comes from the beautiful bed and breakfast La Palomilla in Mexico City. La Palomilla has created an amazing “12 Days of Christmas” recipe book on their blog. As you can see, their recipe book features some amazing traditional Christmas recipes.
Noche Buena Salad from La Palomilla Bed and Breakfast.
La Palomilla’s Noche Buena Salad include beets, jicama, orange slices, and peanuts. The beet juice colors the white jicama pale pink. Plus, it makes of the vegetables sparkle like jewels. All in all, it’s a dish worthy of a special feast.
Noche Buena Salad (Christmas Eve Salad)
A beautiful beet salad adapted from the La Palomilla Bed and Breakfast in Mexico City.
Ingredients
- 3 medium beets, stemmed and peeled if necessary
- 1 large jicama, peeled
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 2 T. sugar
- 1/3 cup peanuts
- 1 orange, sliced
Instructions
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Cut the beets into quarters boil them in 2 cups of water for 15 minutes or until tender. When the beets cool, cut the pieces into cubes. Cut the jicama into equal sized cubes. Combine the beets, jicama, and orange juice. Garnish with orange slices and peanuts.
After we tried La Palomilla’s version, we tried a variation with larger chunks of beets and jicama. This one we garnished with fresh mint for a pretty red and green contrast:
The beauty of this salad is that you can definitely make it your own. Furthermore, as long as you keep the beets in there, you’re guaranteed to have a festive and vibrant salad.
And if you’re interested, we have another great holiday recipe using jicama. These festive Cranberry-Jicama Star Appetizers are tasty and easy for anyone (even kids) to make.
Feliz Navidad!
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Noche Buena Salad: A traditional Mexican Christmas Eve salad.
Hi! I'm Jeanne Fratello - a writer, reporter, and food enthusiast who is on a mission to write great stories about food and where your food comes from.
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