On my way to California from New York, I bought a Food and Wine magazine at the airport and, flipping through, I landed on a delicious looking salad starring an ingredient I hadn’t eaten for a long time: hearts of palm. I only had a vague recollection of a slightly pickled, tender white tubular vegetable with a delicate flavor. A bit of research on Wikipedia − fountain of all knowledge that it is − revealed that South America supplies the majority of imported hearts of palm which are, as you might suspect, the heart of certain types of palm tree. The cans I bought were products of Bolivia and, for that reason, I decided to ignore the $3.99 price tag per can which I thought was pretty outrageous for a bit of fibrous white veg. However, the harvesting process is pretty labor intensive and must also be expensive so, in addition to import costs, I can understand the high price tag.

Facts and figures aside, this is one of the tastiest and all around nutritious vegetables that comes in a can! It’s got lots of natural fiber, vitamin C, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, potassium and protein and is low on fat, carbs and sugar according to this nutrition website. Not to mention it goes great in salads, especially this one.

This will literally take you minutes to make and it is so luxurious and creamy you will feel like you are breaking all the rules, but you aren’t and you’re getting a whole lot of good stuff besides so eat up everyone!

Bon appetit (without the meat)!

Recipe from Food and Wine May 2013

2 14 oz cans of Hearts of Palm, sliced in 1/2″ pieces

1 Avocado, diced in 1/2″ pieces

1 cup Cherry Tomatoes (red or yellow), halved

1/2 medium Sweet Onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup Parsley, roughly chopped

2T Mayonnaise

2T Vegetable or Canola Oil

Zest and juice of 1 Lime (or Lemon-lime)

Directions:

1. In a large bowl toss together first five ingredients.

2. For dressing, whisk together remaining ingredients, season and pour over salad.

3. Serve!