Southwestern Chopped Chicken Salad

I’m a wee bit late with this recipe but better late than never, huh?

I saw this salad on Pinterest and wanted to try it out. It was fantastic, even my son enjoyed it.  It is definitely going in the Family Favorites cookbook and will be made again and again. Recipe originally from greens & chocolate blog

I think the dressing is what really makes the salad. The recipe calls for a mixture of Greek yogurt and mayonnaise, but I think sour cream could be substituted for the yogurt. Enjoy!

Southwestern Chopped Chicken Salad

For the salad:

2 cups shredded, cooked chicken
1 green bell pepper, diced (I preferred to use a red bell pepper)
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 can sweet yellow corn (or 1 cup frozen corn, thawed)
2 roma tomatoes, diced (grape tomatoes work great here)
4 green onions, sliced
1 head ice berg lettuce, washed and chopped (I prefer Romaine)
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 Tbls ranch seasoning mix
1 Tbls taco seasoning mix

In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients together, excluding the tortilla chips. In a small bowl stir all dressing ingredients together. Pour dressing over salad, starting with about half of the dressing. Toss salad to combine, then gradually add more dressing until it is dressed to your liking. Top with tortilla chips.

This makes about 4 dinner sized salads.

The only thing I did a bit differently is I portioned out the amount of salad we would be eating immediately and poured dressing over it. I put the remainder of the salad in the fridge for lunch the next day and the dressing was saved in a separate container as well. I hate dressed salads that sit overnight in the refrigerator. The lettuce gets terribly limp and tasteless.

I also didn’t put the totilla chips in the salad, we decided we didn’t want them. But imagine Cool Ranch or Nacho Cheese Doritos added to it for crunch. Yum, yum!