Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad

In the summer, I can’t get enough salad recipes. Not that one really needs a formal recipe to throw a salad together. Which is kind of the beauty of a salad – combining all the ingredients one has on hand, placing them atop a bed of lettuce, and calling it a meal!

Well, I’m much more of a planner. It’s just my personality. So I followed a recipe for this dinner. And it was a good one at that. Since this is something that I would make for dinner again, I though I would share!

The best part of this recipe is the creamy zesty dressing, made with sour cream, cilantro, minced chipotle in adobo, cumin, chili powder, lime juice, and salt.

The chicken can be seasoned however you like, and roasted in advance. I actually roasted the chicken the day before (on a Sunday), sliced it the next day, and topped my salad with it, which made for even easier weeknight meal assembly.

Since I had ground chipotle on hand, I used that as a chicken seasoning, along with salt and pepper, which paired well with the smoky chipotle flavors of the salad dressing. And, instead of using plain canned corn with this dish, I even found a canned “chipotle corn” at my grocery store! I couldn’t get enough of the smoky chipotle flavors of this salad.

Huge salads make the best dinner.

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Chipotle Chicken Taco Salad

Recipe from Cooking Light

Ingredients

Dressing:

• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2/3 cup light sour cream
• 1 tablespoon minced chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 4 teaspoons fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Salad:

• 4 cups shredded romaine lettuce
• 2 cups chopped roasted skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 2 breasts) $
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 cup diced peeled avocado
• 1/3 cup thinly vertically sliced red onion
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (8 3/4-ounce) can no-salt-added whole-kernel corn, rinsed and drained

Preparation

1. To prepare dressing, combine first 7 ingredients, stirring well.
2. To prepare salad, combine lettuce and remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle dressing over salad; toss gently to coat. Serve immediately.

My rating: 7.7/10