Veggie Ceviche

This is a light and flavorful side dish that makes a perfect summer side dish. Typically ceviche has fish or shell fish as the star ingredient but this vegetarian version uses hearts of palm in place of seafood. These are available in a can or jar at most grocery stores. This ceviche has a Caribbean twist with the addition of coconut milk. I first had a version of this when I traveled to the coast of Ecuador to race and my hotel had an amazing Peruvian restaurant attached to it.

Ingredients:

1/4 of a red onion, thinly sliced (you can do more onion, but I found that this was enough flavor)

several small grape tomatoes, quartered

1 can hearts of palm, chopped to the same size as tomatoes

1 spicy pepper (I used an Italian sweet chili pepper - one of those long curly green peppers and it was perfect)

1.5 limes juice and zested (I like it to be extra zingy)

3 tablespoons coconut milk (more or less depending on your preference)

big pinch of salt

a few grinds of black pepper

big handful of chopped cilantro

chive flowers (if you can get them)

Directions:

Zest and juice lime. Place Slice onions in bowl with lime juice. Let the onions sit in lime while you prepare salad to take away some of the raw red onion bite.

Chop the other ingredients.

Add coconut milk to the lime and onions and give it a stir.

Assemble everything in a bowl and add the lime juice/coconut milk/onion mix.

Gently mix to coat. Hearts of Palm can break apart so be gentle.

Season with salt and pepper.

Toss in cilantro.

Add a bit more lime zest if you are like me!

Top with chive flowers.

I served this with sliced avocado. It’s a great side dish or also makes a great dinner with a full avocado if you have had a carb heavy day.