Decorate crisp romaine lettuce salad with crunchy heart-shape jicama cutouts, juicy pink grapefruit sections, and red grape tomatoes. Give it a drizzle of cumin lime dressing and you’ve got a heart-healthy valentine like no other!

Get out your cookie cutters we’re making healthy valentines–this romaine lettuce and jicama heart salad with cumin lime dressing!

What is Jicama?

• Jicama (HEE-kah-ma) is a crunchy vegetable with rough brown skin and crisp juicy sweet white flesh. One might say it looks like a large oval potato.
• Packed with important minerals and vitamins, jicama is an excellent source of Vitamin C and boasts a significant amount of fiber, including gut-healthy prebiotic fiber. It has about zero calories too. Jicama is a healthy food to include in our diets.
• White fleshed jicama is available year-round in supermarket produce sections. Avoid blemished or bruised jicama, and if the jicama flesh is yellow with brown spots, it is not going to be juicy crisp. Jicamas keep unpeeled in the refrigerator for more than a week.

Show underloved jicama some love by cutting it in heart shapes:

• Cut a slice off the bottom and top. Then slice off the brown skin and the woodier part following the jicama’s curves.
• Cut the peeled oval in half and place cut side down on the cutting board. Carefully slice into 1/8-inch thick slices.
• Use a 2-inch heart-shape cookie cutter to cut out hearts.
• You’ll have plenty of extra jicama from around the cutouts–munch on them now or later.

What to serve with your jicama heart salad with cumin lime dressing:

• This festive salad pairs wonderfully with chard-filled green enchiladas.
• A festive pink hibiscus margarita makes the perfect valentine toast.

More ideas for jicama:

• For Memorial Day and July 4th celebrations, decorate salads with star-shape jicama, blueberries and red bell pepper!
• Jicama adds crunch to this wild rice, arugula, and chickpea salad.
• Jicama adds delightful crunch to fruit salads, like this one with mango and pineapple.
• Jicama makes an awesome healthy dipper for hummus and guacamole.

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Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Romaine Lettuce Salad with Jicama Hearts and Cumin Lime Dressing

Cut crispy juicy jicama into any shape you want. Tangy cumin lime vinaigrette marries the grapefruit citrus, crunchy lettuce, and baby tomatoes with the jicama. It's one of my favorite salads!

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Total Time20 minutes mins

Course: Salad

Cuisine: Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword: cumin, jicama, lime

Servings: 8 servings

Calories: 219kcal

Author: Letty | @lettyskitchen

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice (see note)
• ½ teaspoon agave syrup or honey
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• ½ teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
• ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 or 2 jicamas
• 1 pink grapefruit, sections removed (see note)
• Romaine lettuce, torn into pieces
• 1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
• 10 sprigs fresh cilantro, optional

Instructions

• In a medium bowl, whisk the lime juice, agave syrup or honey, garlic, salt and mustard. Continue whisking and slowly drizzle in the oil. Whisk in the cumin and cayenne.
• Remove the peel from the jicamas. Slice 1/8- to ¼-inch thick. Cut out hearts with a small heart-shape cutter. Toss with some of the dressing and set aside to marinate.
• Arrange mounds of the lettuce onto individual chilled plates. Decorate with the jicama hearts, grapefruit and tomatoes. Drizzle more dressing over the salads. Garnish with the cilantro.

Notes

Use Key limes or Mexican limes if you can find them. They are sweeter than the larger green ones. To section a grapefruit--using a sharp knife, slice off the top and bottom of the grapefruit, then remove the peel and white pith: with the grapefruit standing on its cut bottom, slice down the sides, following the fruit’s contour, completely removing the outside white pith as well as the peel. Hold the grapefruit in your hand and remove the segments by cutting between the fruit and the membrane. Lift out each segment in one piece. Very thinly sliced red onion adds a pleasant optional bite when mixed into the lettuce. Since you are cutting out the hearts, there will be plenty of jicama scraps. Marinate them to add to another salad.

Nutrition

Calories: 219kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 319mg | Potassium: 768mg | Fiber: 15g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 7823IU | Vitamin C: 80mg | Calcium: 75mg | Iron: 3mg

Her skin bristles when someone calls her granola head. It feels derisive, even though she probably fits the description—she’s a vegetarian with leftist leanings, her hair is un-dyed grey, she doesn’t wear a lot of makeup, and yes, she inhaled. She makes apple juice and maple syrup sweetened healthy homemade granola –does that make her a granola head?

Apple juice and maple syrup sweeten this nutty granola–a recipe I got from my friend Abhilasha. Abhilasha and her husband Pujari offer retreats in the mountains of southern Utah–she cooks incredible vegetarian meals and he teaches yoga and meditation to their guests. Naturally sweetened, and with a strong ratio of nuts to oats, –you will be keeping a jar of Abhilasha’s homemade granola on hand at all times–it’s the best!

Spicy with cayenne and mustard, all tender melt-in-the-mouth with butter and cheese, and crunchy from the cornmeal, here is New Year’s Eve’s appetizer, cornmeal cheddar cheese coins. You’ll find me cozy at home, munching these addictive savory bites and sipping a glass of champagne.

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