We had a great weekend in State College celebrating a bunch of family birthdays. As usual, we stayed at my wife sister’s home, who takes on organizing meals for every family gathering. She is a wonderful home cook who puts on these incredible feasts that are unique, entertaining and delicious.

One of the simpler dishes she threw together was this delicious Mango Salsa that was served as an appetizer with chips but could be used just as nicely as a topping for chicken or pork. In fact, I think I threw some on my grilled salmon.

Ingredients:

½ cup cooked black beans – you can cook them yourself but canned beans will work quite nicely.
1 ripe medium sized mango
1 red bell pepper
½ red onion
Juice from 3 limes
8 tablespoons pineapple juice
1/3 cup of fresh cilantro
1-tablespoon ground cumin
1 jalapeno chili pepper
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

Prep the ingredients:

Peel & pit the mango and then dice it into ¼ inch pieces.
Core and seed the bell pepper and dice into small pieces.
Peel and dice the onion into equal sized pieces.
Squeeze the juice from the limes and have it ready.
Chop the cilantro finely.
Stem, seed and mince the jalapeno pepper. Be careful not to touch your hands to your eyes after working with this chile pepper.

How to Prepare at Home

Combine all the ingredients together in one good sized bowl. Taste and adjust seasonings with the salt and pepper. Don’t overwork the salsa or it will become a big mush.

You can serve this whenever, but it will taste even better if you let it size a while in the refrigerator up to a few days.