Name: 15 Minute Mango Salsa
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 1 pound mango, diced (3 cups); 2 jalapenos, ribbed and seeded, finely minced; 1 cup cucumber, diced; 1/2 cup red onion, finely minced; 2 limes, juiced; 1/2 cup chopped cilantro (about 1 bunch)

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What is better than a perfect bowl of fresh, ripe mango salsa? Nothing, you say? You would be THE MOST correct. It’s fruity, it’s sweet, it’s tangy, it’s got some spice from the jalapeno, bite from the red onion, and freshness from the cilantro.

Throw it on top of grilled chicken, fish, pork, grass clippings…wait, probably not…but maybe?

This mango salsa takes like two seconds to make because we use a little time saving hack thanks to Aldi (not sponsored, just love their inexpensive produce). Aldi sells pre-peeled and de-seeded mango. If you’ve ever chopped a mango before, you know that the peeling/slicing around the single giant seed/core in the middle takes some time. And the amount of mango you get once you’ve ditched the peel and seed isn’t a ton.

But at Aldi they sell a big ol’ box of prepped mango, and all you have to do is dice it up. It’s the ACTUAL best, because I fooooor sure don’t have time to prep a bunch of mangoes for salsa – we’re in the business of easy, low maintenance dinners over here!

Because of that wonderful little time saver, this mango salsa takes pretty DANG little effort. Dice up all your fresh, yummy ingredients, add some lime juice, and you all done, fam. Here’s what we’ve got:

Mango
Jalapeno
Red onion
Cucumber
Cilantro
Lime juice

That’s it! It adds SO much to things that would normally be so plain and blah (hello, chicken breast 👋. Sorry for throwing you under the bus there…but you can be really boring).

You need this in your life this spring and summer, friends! And hit up your Aldi so you can save yourself a solid fifteen minutes of prep!

Alright, in a non mango salsa related note, I have got to tell you guys about the first half of my day…it was the epitome of sole-parenting-two-kids-under-two hot mess kind of morning. I wanted to get out and do something for the entire first half of the day today with the kids and be out until nap time, so I decided to hit this awesome, giant park near downtown Charlotte.

It was all going according to plan – had both kids and myself ready to hit the road by 9:30. Colt (our youngest one) was on track to take a car nap and then be good to be out and about for a while afterwards. So we are on the way to the park and Colt is fighting his nap HARD and screams for probably about 10-15 minutes before he finally racks out.

He’s been taking HORRIBLE, horrible, HOOOOORRIBLE naps lately because he has been sick and teething (like 30 minute naps), so I wanted to let him sleep as long as possible and not risk waking him up when we got to the park.

So I head in another direction towards the airport to visit this overlook area where Ford can watch the planes. So we do that for like 45 minutes while Colt sleeps in the car, but after 45 minutes he stilllllll isn’t awake, so I just put Ford back in the car and hit the road, assuming he will be awake when we get to the park 25 minutes away. By the time I get to the park, we have two issues: one – Colt is still sleeping. Two – I am LITERALLY about to pee my pants. Like bladder combusting level. But this is a public park with a public restroom (no family restrooms), and I cannot physically figure out a way I can go to the bathroom with my giant double stroller in tow. I go back and forth about what I want to do for a bit about the still-sleeping Colty and decide to just transfer him to the stroller and hope he doesn’t wake up. Done. Decision made.

The transfer was successful and he stayed asleep. Inner high five. Then literally twenty feet from the car, he wakes up. Which is fine, no biggie, this means I can put him in the chest carrier and Ford can go on the playground. So I head back to the car to get the carrier and, at that moment, what appears to be the ENTIRE Charlotte school system gets dropped off at the playground – matching shirts for different groups and all. So no playground for Ford. I keep Colt in the stroller and stuff the carrier in there for later. We are strolling around, Ford’s having a great time, all is well, and then Colt gets hungry and needs to eat. I pull off, make Colt a bottle (while shamelessly giving Ford my phone so he will chill through all this), and about half way through, I smell something, look down, and he’s had a blowout diaper explosion all over my t-shirt. White shirt, by the way.

P.S. I’m still literally about to pee publicly in this park – haven’t solved that little problem yet.

I decide the bathroom is a priority, and clearly Colt needs a diaper change too (an adult diaper would have been BAE in this moment). So we head there, praying for a stall that can fit my SUV sized stroller. We find one successfully, the stall is huge, and that mission was completed. I go to change Colt out of his diaper and find a change of clothes for him, and surprise surprise! I only have a change of clothes for Ford, not Colt (newb parenting move). So I was prepared to put Fords 2T shirt on tiny 6 month old Colty, but, by some miracle, the blowout juuuust ended up on my shirt, not his onesie. How is it possible? I don’t know – God loves me.

We play for a bit longer, Colt strapped to my chest while he DIES laughing at Ford on the swing, and then we go home. That’s the end of the drama, but it was QUITE the morning.