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The Dealer Joe’s product web page provides a quick but informative description of jicama, a tuberous root vegetable that’s the key ingredient in these scrumptious wraps: “Native to Mexico and South America, Jicama (HICK-ah-mah) has been a staple in sure cuisines for hundreds of years. Texturally, this tuber resembles a crunchy cross between a water chestnut and an apple. By way of taste, it’s kind of like a radish—minus the spice. Some people even say it is barely nutty. On the entire, nonetheless, jicama is delicate and impartial.”
Now that we have now its roots (pun meant) and style profile lined, what are jicama’s key well being advantages? Furthermore, apart from shopping for these wraps in your subsequent Dealer Joe’s run, how else can you utilize the entire veggie in recipes? These questions, answered beneath.
Jicama’s key vitamins and advantages
Earlier than we dive into the important thing well being advantages of jicama, Los Angeles–based mostly dietitian Gaby Vaca-Flores, RDN, shares just a few highlights of the veggie’s nutrient content material. “Jicama is loaded with advanced carbohydrates. For that reason, it is a good source of fiber with one serving offering a bit over six grams,” she says.
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Subsequent up, it’s additionally a wonderful supply of vitamin C—or extra particularly, it provides a “significant amount of ascorbic acid,” per an evaluation revealed in Meals Chemistry. “The truth is, a cup of jicama may also help you meet greater than 40 % of the Beneficial Dietary Consumption for vitamin C,” Vaca-Flores provides. However that’s not all. “As with most root greens, jicama additionally delivers small quantities of many nutritional vitamins and minerals together with nutritional vitamins B6 and E, calcium, folate, iron, potassium, manganese, and zinc.”
Each figuratively and actually, I’m consuming this all up—and that’s even earlier than dives into how these vitamins all stand to learn your well being. Right here’s a take a look at a few of the greatest wellness wins you’ll be able to anticipate by including jicama to your weight-reduction plan:
1. Jicama is gut-friendly
Jicama contains inulin, a selected sort of prebiotic fiber. “Prebiotics like inulin promote a balanced intestine microbiome by serving to to develop the great micro organism (aka probiotics) within the intestine,” says Vaca-Flores. A balanced gut is a happy gut, which promotes a cascade of advantages on your digestion, pores and skin well being, and extra.
2. It provides much-needed fiber for digestive well being and past
Fiber is the reward that retains on giving—and practically all of us may use extra of it. In accordance with a 2021 research by the American Society of Vitamin, a mere seven percent of adults in the U.S. meet fiber recommendations (which presently stand at 31 to 34 grams per day for males and 22 to twenty-eight grams per day for ladies, per the present Dietary Guidelines for Americans). In accordance with the USDA’s nutrient database, one medium jicama contains a whopping 32 grams of fiber, which suggests you may greater than exceed your day by day consumption with simply considered one of these tubers. “Jicama’s excessive fiber content material may also help promote regularity and regular functioning digestion. As well as, consuming sufficient fiber may also help with blood sugar administration, amongst different advantages,” Vaca-Flores says.
3. Jicama helps immune perform
Once more, jicama is wealthy in vitamin C, aka the antioxidant we all know and love for its immunity-boosting powers. “Vitamin C helps to help the wholesome perform of cells that make up each the innate and adaptive immune methods,” Vaca-Flores says. So the subsequent time you are feeling like you possibly can use an immune enhance, think about switching issues up from the usual OJ and including jicama to your cart as a substitute.
3 jicama recipes to spice up your consumption of fiber and micronutrients
Certain, you’ll be able to slice and cube your jicama and revel in it uncooked by itself, or just sub jicama wraps (from Dealer Joe’s or elsewhere) for tortillas on taco evening. However if you wish to get a bit extra inventive, acquire inspo with these tasty jicama recipes.
1. Baked jicama fries
If you happen to love French fries and are open to nutrient-dense alternate options, jicama fries are the way in which to go. In her recipe for baked jicama fries, Michelle Blackwood, RN, the blogger and recipe developer behind More healthy Steps, mentions that whereas outer crispiness shouldn’t be a problem, the important thing to creating them tender on the within is to boil them earlier than baking. And whereas it’s finest to eat them freshly ready, you’ll be able to edit the recipe to your liking—whether or not you wish to add in cayenne for further warmth, use butter in lieu of olive oil, or choose to air fry them.
Get the recipe: Baked jicama fries
2. Jicama and citrus salad (Xec)
In her jicama and citrus salad (Xec) recipe, Mely Martinez of Mexico in My Kitchen shares that this traditional Yucatan aspect dish is particularly common on the Day of the Lifeless. Though conventional recipes name for bitter/Seville orange—which can be tougher to search out stateside—she shares that a mixture of orange and grapefruit plus a contact of lime juice will suffice to construct out the flavour profiles of this wholesome and refreshing salad.
Get the recipe: Jicama and citrus salad (Xec)
3. Black bean tacos with spiralized jicama and avocado mash
Really feel like your meals selections are *spiraling* uncontrolled? Take cues from cookbook creator Ali Maffucci of Inspiralized who—you guessed it—makes use of a spiralizer to make spaghetti-like jicama slices in her plant-based recipe for black bean tacos topped with jicama salsa and avocado mash. She provides you can substitute lettuce wraps rather than tortillas… however if you wish to double down on the well being advantages of jicama, you would possibly as nicely go wild through the use of jicama wraps as a substitute.
Get the recipe: Black bean tacos with spiralized jicama and avocado mash
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