Anyone else big on meal prep and getting their lunches made ahead of time for the week?
If your answer is yes and you enjoy a good salad, here is an easy recipe that can get you through the week.
First, you will make the cool and spicy Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing to give it plenty of time to chill in the fridge before eating. This stuff is sooo good and it can be used on a variety of salads just as long as you plan to use it within about 5 days. Avocado as we all know likes to turn brown when its flesh is exposed to the air and if you’re like me, you receive typical comments like, “would you like some salad with that dressing?”
My point is if you tend to use what others might consider to be an absurd amount of salad dressing, that will help you out here. Ain’t no shame in the dressing game.
While this is chillin’, you can start putting the salad together. I divided mine into Tupperware containers and built from there.
I was never one to enjoy corns and beans in my salad, but this one just needs them! all the flavors just go together really well and the corn adds the perfect amount of sweetness to the spicy dressing.
Yes, my mother probably did tell me not to play with my food, but I never learn. It’s too tempting.
This salad also contains red bell pepper, halved grape or cherry tomatoes, pepitas or sunflower seeds, pepper jack cheese and tortilla strips. I also added a cucumber to mine because, why not? I would leave off the cheese and the tortillas until serving to avoid the cheese going bad prematurely and the tortillas from becoming soggy but the rest can just be piled on.
Serve with the creamy avocado salsa dressing or add grilled chicken if you wish.
Southwest Tortilla Salad with Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- 1-2 heads Romaine lettuce chopped
- 1 can corn kernels or use fresh from 1 ear of sweet corn
- 1 red bell pepper chopped
- 1 cup cucumber chopped
- 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes halved
- 1 can black beans rinsed and drained
- 1/3 cup roasted and salted pepitas or sunflower seeds
- 1/2 cup pepper jack cheese grated, or more to taste
- Tortilla Strips
For the Dressing:
- 1 small avocado peeled and sliced
- 1 small jalapeno seeded and roughly chopped
- 1 clove garlic peeled
- 1/4 cup Cilantro less if using a paste
- 1/4 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup smooth salsa
- 1/4 cup Milk plus more for thinning
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. sugar
- juice from 1 lime
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. Cumin
- 1/8 tsp. black pepper
- 1/8 tsp. smoked paprika
- Hot sauce to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Add all of the Creamy Avocado Salsa Dressing ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth, scraping the sides as needed. Add hot sauce and additional salt and pepper to taste. Add additional milk to thin to desired consistency if needed. Chill in the refrigerator.
- Add salad ingredients to a large bowl (or individual portions if making as part of meal prep. Leave out cheese if not serving immediately, and leave out tortillas, then toss to combine.
- Toss salad with desired amount of dressing or drizzle dressing over individual servings if not eating all the salad immediately.
- Garnish salad with tortilla strips and freshly cracked salt and pepper.
Looks cool and yummy-a great summer dish! Workplace shenanigans? The worst (or best, depending on your perspective) was when I worked with a very funny Cajun ENT doctor and he had fun with a fart machine. Let’s just say some of our patients never looked the same at me again because of course he placed the machine somewhere near me at all times in secret. Ugh. Was awful!