This raw vegan watermelon salsa is a wonderful dish to take to parties or barbeques, as it’s really popular with raw and cooked eaters alike. The combination of sweet, sour, salty and spicy taste makes it incredibly moreish – beware, one spoonful and you’ll be hooked!

The other thing that makes it handy for parties is that it’s fine to make a big batch the day before and chill it overnight – in fact it tastes even better as the flavours all mix and marinate together.

I have used this recipe for many years, but I only make it occasionally, because as you will see from the ingredients, it’s a quite the ‘combo abombo’!  For optimal digestion, watermelon is best eaten on its own, on an empty stomach, so in food combination terms, mixing it with such a lot of different ingredients is not generally recommended.

But every once in a while I like to live dangerously 😉

Strangely though, I don’t notice any digestive discomfort when eating this dish – perhaps because it’s only a side dish, meaning that I would only eat a little, and also perhaps the addition of chilli and ginger help with digestion.

Another thing that prevents me from making it very often is the difficulty of finding organic sweetcorn – I’m not keen on using the conventional version in case it’s GMO.

Ingredients for raw vegan watermelon salsa

4 cups watermelon (about half a medium-sized watermelon), chopped

2 cups fresh coriander

Juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime

2 fresh organic sweetcorns

1 chilli

1 avocado

1 tablespoon raw tahini

1 red chilli

1” cube ginger root

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ – 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

You can adjust the ingredients to suit your taste, depending on how salty/spicy you like things.  I particularly encourage you to go crazy with the fresh coriander as this really makes the dish!

How to make:

Scoop the watermelon out and chop or mash it up in a big bowl. Save the watermelon shell to use as a serving dish later.

Scrape the kernels off the sweetcorn straight into the bowl with the watermelon.

De-seed and finely chop the chilli.

Peel and finely chop the ginger.

Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, scoop out the flesh and chop.

Finely chop the fresh coriander.

Add all remaining ingredients and mix / mash them together thoroughly.

Put the mixture back into the watermelon shell. Leave in the fridge until you are ready to eat it.  It should keep for a few days.

This salsa goes great on raw crackers.  It is often the surprise hit of the party – just be sure to make enough for everybody 😉