Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Extra good taco salad!

We love taco salad!  It is one of my stand-by meals for nights when I don't have much time because I usually make taco meat in bulk and then freeze it in portions perfect for one dinner.  So all I have to do it warm it up, toss the salad together, and serve!  I will admit that my girls do not like salad so I just fix them a quick fried taco instead.  THIS recipe caught my eye because it included cilantro and sweet peppers which I LOVE but have never included in my taco salad.  We liked this recipe so much that I have decided to replace my normal recipe with this one.  A couple of changes I made this time: I always buy green-leaf lettuce for salads; we just like it better than the other types.  My husband does not like cold beans, chicken, and corn, so I mixed them together, topped them with a bit of salsa and warmed them in my toaster oven before adding to the rest of the veggies.  And he does not like avocados so I reserved those for myself.  And we don't like raw onions.  I also made up my own version of the dressing because we don't like mayonnaise and I make my own taco and ranch seasonings.  I'd tell you what I did, but I never measure :)


  • Ingredients for salad:
  • 2 cups shredded chicken or taco meat
  • 1 green bell pepper, diced (I prefer a bit of each of the stoplight peppers because they are sweeter and add color!)
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed (I used my own soaked and cooked beans)
  • 1 can sweet yellow corn (or 1 cup frozen corn, thawed)
  • 2 roma tomatoes, diced (I skipped this because I added a bit of salsa)
  • 4 green onions, sliced
  • 1 head ice berg lettuce, washed and chopped (I prefer green-leaf lettuce)
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
  • 2 ripe avocados, diced
  • 1 cup crushed tortilla chips
  • for the dressing:
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 2/3 cup Greek yogurt
  • 1 tbsp ranch seasoning
  • 1 tbsp taco seasoning
  1. In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients together, excluding the tortilla chips.
  2. In a small bowl stir all dressing ingredients together.
  3. Pour dressing over salad, starting with about half of the dressing.
  4. Toss to combine, then gradually add more dressing until it is dressed to your liking.
  5. Top with tortilla chips. Enjoy!

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