BBQ Jackfruit Salad with Spicy Avocado Dressing

We’re now in the throes of the dog days of summer. You know what I mean. The days when you cannot fathom wearing anything except linen or venturing outside for more than 5 minutes. And the idea of a heavy meal sounds like the furthest thing from appetizing you could possibly imagine.

In fact, you want to spend as little time as possible next to a hot stove. You want a light meal with a cool crunch and bursting with flavors.

These are the days when, driven by the bright sunshine and omnipresent humidity, you feel just crazy (adventurous?) enough to try out jackfruit pulled pork.

Wait, hold on, what even is jackfruit?! Jackfruit is a large, tropical fruit native to South and Southeast Asia. It’s known for its spiky, green outer skin and the sweet, yellow flesh inside. The fruit is unique in that it can be eaten both when it’s ripe and unripe.

When it’s unripe, jackfruit has a more neutral taste and a meaty texture, particularly similar to the same pull-apart texture as pork. It’s become popular as a plant-based meat substitute in savory dishes like curries, tacos, and sandwiches.

Jackfruit is also nutritious, offering a good source of fiber, vitamin C, potassium, and antioxidants.

BBQ Jackfruit Salad with Spicy Avocado Dressing

Trader Joe’s Green Jackfruit In Brine

You can find canned jackfruit in an aisle at your local Trader Joe’s for the very reasonable price of $1.99. I picked up a can of jackfruit when I was perusing the aisles of TJ’s and thought it would go great with the Trader Joe’s Mango Chipotle BBQ Sauce that I had in my fridge at home. Spoiler alert: My hunch was spot-on.

When preparing the jackfruit, first things first you will want to thoroughly rinse the jackfruit. I used a fine mesh sieve to avoid getting pieces stuck in my colander.

Heat up the olive oil in a skillet and sauté the jackfruit for about 5 minutes.

Next, add the sauce (in this case, BBQ sauce), toss to evenly coat, and then cover to let it simmer.

You can then easily use two forks to create the shredded jackfruit.

Vegan jackfruit is most known for taking on the BBQ flavor. But with its neutral taste, you can really make the most out of this fruit.

A Few Ideas for Jackfruit Recipes

• Mix jackfruit with a soy-based sauce and stuff into a steamed bao.
• Toss jackfruit with curry sauce (like my curry-in-a-hurry dish)
• Season with taco seasoning (chili powder, ground cumin, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder), pile into a tortilla, and top with a healthy scoop of guacamole, pickled red onions, and black beans for extra protein.

Now, let’s get to the BBQ jackfruit salad!

Building a BBQ Jackfruit Salad

Drain and rinse jackfruit, pat dry.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and sauté jackfruit for 5 minutes.

Lower heat to medium-low and BBQ sauce, toss to evenly coat.

Cover pan and let simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pull jackfruit apart with two forks once tender.

Build your salad, top with BBQ jackfruit and drizzle with spicy avocado dressing.

While I saw a lot of sandwiches when I searched for ideas, I opted to swap out a roll for a bed of cool, crunch romaine lettuce. Leaning into the whole fruit-as-pork thing, I chopped up fresh mango chunks to add some sweetness.

To balance it out, I added spicy jalapeños (Trader Joe’s Hot ‘n  Sweet Jalapeños will ruin regular jarred jalapeños for you) and some tortilla chips for extra crunch.

This BBQ jackfruit salad is perfect for summer and can easily be turned into a BBQ sandwich, wrap, taco, burrito, you name it. If you turn this into a sandwich, I’d highly recommend topping it with homemade coleslaw (shredded cabbage and carrots, mayo, a few dashes of apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper).

While the jackfruit doesn’t taste exactly like pulled pork, it’s definitely a great lighter alternative if you are looking to add in some more plant-based dishes into your recipe trove or need an easy and flavorful gluten free dish.

Spicy Avocado Lime Dressing

While I was waiting for the BBQ jackfruit to cool, I whipped up a spicy avocado lime dressing. Yes, I know I’m a bit of a masochist when it comes to spicy.

I used 1 medium avocado, 1 diced jalapeño (you can remove the seeds to mitigate the heat level), around 2 tablespoons of dried cilantro, 1/2 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper, and the juice of 1 lime.

To prepare the salad dressing, I used a large bowl and an immersion blender.

If you don’t have an immersion blender, also called a hand blender, in your kitchen, I cannot recommend this tool enough! I love it for soups, smoothies, and dressings. I could go on but that’s not the focus of this post!