If we’re having a hearty dinner, I love making this as an appetizer. With papaya, tomato, and red pepper in a wonderful papaya seed dressing, it’s a light, healthy delight. Fantastic with tortilla chips, crackers, or fresh slices of bread.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 20 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 small papaya
- 5 medium Roma (plum) tomatoes, diced
- ½ medium red onion, diced
- 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ teaspoon mustard powder
- 2 stalks green onions, chopped
- 1 (16 inch) French baguette, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
Instructions
- Cut papaya in half and remove seeds. Reserve 2 tablespoons of seeds for the dressing. Peel and dice the papaya, and place in a medium bowl. Add tomatoes, red onion, red pepper and basil, and set aside.
- In a food processor or blender, combine the papaya seeds, sugar, wine vinegar, oil, mustard and green onions. Process until smooth and thick, and most of the seeds have broken up. Pour over the papaya mixture and stir to coat all of the ingredients. Serve with slices of baguette.
- Please note the slight substitution of ingredients as well as the toasting of the bread when using the magazine version of this recipe.
Reviews
This was really good! I was surprised at how good and simple it was. This does not do very well as a leftover / after being refrigerated. It just kind of droops and becomes a bit squishy. Still tastes good, but not as good as it was fresh!
Very good. For my tastes, next time I’ll double the red pepper and red/green onions.
Catered a mixer with this recipe. They had a very small budget ad I was looking for a recipe which was low on cost but still impressive. Bruschetta usually fits the bill for those requirements but I wanted to do something a little different than the norm. This worked perfectly, guests loved it, great for summertime serving. I doubled the recipe but only used 5 tomatoes. I think if you used the full amount the flavor of the papaya would have been overwhelmed.
This is a fantastic recipe! I have made it many times now and my family and friends love it. I add avacados which is good for more color and tastes good. Thanks so much for this recipe!
The original idea is a good one, but like many others I modified a bit. I don’t eat processed or cooked food much, so I used a good quality organic olive oil, no sugar (addictive and highly processed), lettuce instead of bread (I am still looking for a good raw bread substitute and lettuce don’t get soggy), and added dates to sweeten the sauce. It is true that a ripe papaya can make all the difference. Choose one that is mostly yellow, soft but not mushy, and heavy. Fresh ingredients are always best! I used basil, tomato and papaya from my garden. With these adjustments, it was wonderful!
I HATE papaya, but we got some beautiful papayas as part of a Harry & David gift and I didn’t want to waste them. This was surprisingly good! The tomato and vinegar offset the sweetness nicely. I recommend starting with no sugar, but add gradually to taste. I was also very unsure of what the papaya seeds would add– I didn’t know you could eat them. Our learning: yes, they’re great as used here, but don’t eat them alone! 😉 My daughter & I each crunched one before adding to the recipe. Don’t try this at home. A little like crunching a black peppercorn. But in the blender as part of the dressing, they add a very unusual peppery flavor, like cracked pepper. For those who had problems with watery-ness: brush your baguette slices with a touch of olive oil (or spray lightly) and bake 5 min so they’re good & crunchy, and definitely drain the salsa before spooning on. Thanks for a unique, light app that will be used several times this summer!
This was really yummy. I am going to rate it 5 stars even though I changed an ingredient (ok two). I didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I used strawberry vinegrette and I used olive oil instead. Even if I would have followed it, it would have been just as yummy- so try it!
Excellent; I used half the sugar and drained before serving and it was perfect. I halved the recipe and still had plenty for 8 people, unless this were a whole meal I think the portions are a bit off. Would be great with mango too instead of the papaya.
This is fabulous. It bugs me when people rate recipes but have essentially changed the original, but I must admit that I subbed mango for the papaya because that’s what I had. It was wonderful on bread BUT the next day we had it with grilled salmon! Amazing combination!
Definitely a different take on one of my favourites, bruschetta, but I found it to be a little too sweet. I love papayas, but the dressing ruined it for me. The sauce went all runny, and by the time it was served, I had soggy bread. Don’t think I’ll be making this one again.
Fantastic recipe and taste even better the next day. I skipped the papaya seeds all together, and reduced the oil to 2 TBS of olive oil. Served half as a cold salsa with tortilla chips and the other half lightly toasted on baguette slices. Great warm or cold. Thanks for the great recipe.
I give this recipe more than 5 stars! I jsut made it for a party and what a hit! Evertone raved about it. Even my 12 year old son loved it. I highly reccomend this recipe.
I used a 1/4 of a very, very lg papaya, half a ? tomato, & half a yellow bell peppr….making sure that my ratio of papaya was the greatest. My blender didn’t have any problems handling the seeds although Katie’s post almost scared me out of adding them. ;o) I enjoyed them in the dressing & will add them again. I sliced french bread, sprayed it w/ olive oil Pam & broiled it til it wsa golden. Topped it w/ the papaya mixture (undrained & didn’t feel the need to do so but I only added the dressing until it looked right…I still had a little left that I didn’t use) & served it w/ a Lychee martini…we both loved it & will have again. Don’t skimp on the basil!
I, like other reviewers, did not incorporate the papaya seeds in my blender. I thought that this was a good bruschetta recipe, though not particularly different from a flavor perspective (the taste of the papaya gets lost with all the other flavors and its texture is really similar to the tomato.) You definitely need to be careful to strain it a bit before you layer it on toasted bread or it’s a bit too soupy.
This was so great! I had to subsitute white onion, and dried basil and less tomato than it called for, but it was still really great. I will make it again.
Surprisingly good! It really seemed like a weird combination of ingredients- especially the papaya seeds! Bleh! But somehow when it all comes together it’s delicious. On a side note, the recipe makes tons so you may want to half it.
this was yummy but it felt much more like a fruit salsa taht a type of bruschetta
This was a unique and very tasty recipe; it’s great for summer entertaining.
I made this for a party I attended and some people really liked it. I served it with french baguett slices. I would not suggest including the papaya seeds. They broke my blender and did not add any flavor to the recipe. It would be just as good without the seeds and I’d still have a blender!
I love this little appetizer that looks like it took all day to make. The only trick is to get a juicy papaya because otherwise the bruschetta can turn out a little dry.
This recipe is delicious as a salad also. I simple cut the papaya, tomatoes and red pepper into larger pieces and omit the baguette. One note – it is not always easy to find a ripe papaya, which is very important to the success of this recipe. Thank you LJolley.