Southwest Chicken Salad II

Great salad with a nice Southwestern flair - perfect for a quick and easy lunch! It was also a great way to use up some leftover grilled chicken! I used a mix of romaine and iceberg lettuce and opted out of the cabbage. I added some tomato and used a Mexican blend cheese. Instead of bottled ranch dressing I used "Ranch-Style Buttermilk" dressing from this site and "Tortilla Snack Strips". Overall, very tasty!

This WAS like a restaurant quality salad! To make it quick and easy, I used pre-cooked chicken strips, and then just browned them up in a cast-iron skillet with some fajita seasoning (gave the chicken a fabulous crust!). Then I mixed all the salad ingredients in a bowl, using romaine lettuce, arugula and some baby lettuces and added corn, red bell pepper, grape tomatoes, red cabbage, shallots (since I didn't have any red onion) and some light tortilla chips. I plated this mix and topped it with the black beans, chicken and cheese. Then I mixed together some homemade salsa and light ranch dressing and lightly drizzled this over the top for a spicy mexi-ranch style dressing. My husband and I thought this made a wonderful, quick and tasty dinner!

This was very good. I did add some taco seasoning to the chicken to give it a more southwest flavor and some kick. Love the combo of lettuce and cabbage-took then both from packaged bags so it was easy.

This is a very good salad, Butter1! Its one of those recipes that you can dress up or dress down. I had some friends coming for lunch so I used 1/4 head purple cabbage for color, fresh romaine, chopped an avocado into chunks, mixed the chip pieces, beans, corn, red onion slices, 1/4 red bell pepper rather than green, and cooked the chicken in taco seasoning before combining it with the salad ingred. For dressing, I elected to use a good quality Caesar Dressing to which I add a bit of taco seasoning and lots of cumin to taste. I like the extra zip this dressing gives to the salad.

NOTE CHANGES: I wanted to serve this as a cold salad, so I used home-canned chicken and black beans. I also didn't have any greens, so substituted bamboo shoots and water chestnuts for crunch. I also added a packet of taco seasoning mix. This recipe is a great springboard for swapping around ingredients, so don't get too hung up on the quantities or substitutions, and just make it with what you have on hand and save a trip to the grocery store.

This was so good! And so easy. We loved it!I seasoned the chicken..and added cilantro to the salad mix & Served with fresh salsa. I don't eat chicken so I sliced some avocado and put on my salad in place of the chicken. This worked for us, as a meat eater and a vegetarian. Thanks!

This was a BIG hit with my family! I was more generous with the cheese & used leftover grilled chicken, but other than that I followed the recipe. I highly recommend this one!

If you don't have taco seasoning, just sprinkle some paprika, chili powder, and ground cumin on it. Delicious!

this was really good! You can use any kind of tortilla chips you have on hand. I also seasoned my chicken as some others said they did. I sliced the raw chicken and cooked it in a little olive oil and Pampered Chef southwest seasoning mix. Very tasty! I served it with the chicken and beans hot for dinner and took it for lunch the next day and ate it with the chicken and beans cold. Great both ways.

Loved this salad. Will use this recipe again. I used the colored sweet peppers instead of the green bell pepper.

I fried the chicken in our indoor grill with our grill chicken seasonings. I would use less cabbage next time and also maybe a little salsa on top.

Perfect summer salad. I added fresh cilantro in the salad. For dressing I used ranch and mixed taco sauce, cumin and chili powder with it. Will definitely make this again!

We really enjoyed this salad. I added Fajita seasoning to the beans and chicken, and that made it very good.

Excellent salad! For an even faster salad prep, substitute canned chicken for cooked chicken. Also, I added 1/2 cup of salsa.

I cooked this and took it to my church for the women's meeting and the women loved it. They did not even put salad dressing on it. I will tell you that I cooked the chicken the same way that you cooked it on the Acapulco Chicken recipe. It was awesome.

This recipe is excellent and all around pleaser

kinda boring.

This recipe was pretty good, but I did have a couple changes. I cut out the cabbage and the green pepper. Instead I added the same amount of salsa as ranch dressing. It's great, you should try it.

This is so good and so easy to make. It's like a restaurant salad! My husband loved it and has requested it since!

great with a little hot sauce and salsa! a perfect dinner with lots of flavor and fiber!

This is a quick and easy dinner. I grilled some pork tenderloin and cut it into strips instead of using chicken. I omitted the cabbage, and used red bell pepper instead of green. I also substituted Southwest ranch for regular ranch. This salad goes well with a dab of salsa on top.

This is a great salad! So much flavor. The only change was we made the Spicy Spicy Ranch Dressing recipe on this site to give it an extra kick!

I made this with several changes, mostly due to what I had. I used all iceberg lettuce, just rinsed and used canned black beans and an ear of grilled corn. I added small pieces of tomato and omitted the tortilla chips. I used finely shredded Mexican 3-cheese blend and red bell pepper. I did as someone else suggested and coated the chicken with fajita seasoning before grilling, and it was wonderful! Delicious salad. I topped it with “Southwest Fiesta Dressing”, but used plenty of substitutions there as well. Just have fun!

DELICIOUS SALAD that even my 7 and 5-year olds enjoyed! I substituted the ranch for Catalina for more of a taco twist. I also added more beans for extra protein...YUMMY!