Spicy Southwest Salad with Creamy Cilantro Dressing

Spicy Southwest Salad with Creamy Cilantro Dressing is a quick and easy dinner salad to whip up from the contents of your kitchen.Make it a healthy lunch or dinner!

Happy New Year!! 2013 has arrived despite all of the Mayan prophecies and many people are making all of the usual promises to themselves. I don’t know why we feel compelled to make all of these changes on the first day of the year. We could just as easily do it on a Tuesday in the middle of August. Nevertheless, here we are with grand intentions of bettering ourselves by this time next year and I am no different.

Top of the list is the always present “Lose X pounds”. I’m changing this up a little this year. It’s more like ” Get your butt off the couch and exercise 5 days a week. And quit eating like a teenager and drinking like a frat boy.” As my 31st birthday looms ever closer (3 weeks away. eeck!) I’m going to have to accept that I no longer have the metabolism of a perky waitress in a dive bar in Memphis. It’s my last hold-out and it’s days are numbered. I figure if I can stick to this, then the weight will gradually fall away.

My next, and probably easiest, resolution is to get back on the Dave Ramsey wagon. We started back in August and did really great up until December. December was (and always is) an expensive month. We didn’t lose any money but we didn’t save any either. So back on the budget we go and that’s okay with me.

This last one is something that I really didn’t think about until yesterday and it fits right into the budgeting goal. It’s a Pantry Challenge and I came across it over at Good Cheap Eats. Ya’ll…I need this. I have so many random things in my pantry that I really need to use. I don’t want to throw it away, but I am tired of moving them around. I have tons of dried beans, pasta, canned squash, relishes, and pickles. I also have lots of off-the-wall things; rice noodles, fish sauce, canned sardines, and Irish oatmeal (what makes it Irish anyway?). With the gardening season coming up, it’s time to make a little room. Oh! And we bought a side of beef, so I need to make room for that too.

So, this Spicy Southwest Salad with Creamy Cilantro Dressing is kind of a combo of all of these things. It’s very healthy and filling and the creamy dressing used quite a bit of ingredients in the fridge and spice cabinet. Hooray for me! The salad is enough for one, but the dressing makes enough for four. It’ll last 3-4 days in the fridge. It would also be great as a dip for grilled chicken or raw veggies.

Happy New Year!!

Southwest Salad with Spicy Cilantro Dressing

Healthy and refreshing this salad is a quick pantry fix!

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Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Course: lunch, salad

Cuisine: mexican

Servings: 1 salad

Author: Two Lucky Spoons

Ingredients

Salad:

• 2 cups chopped Romaine lettuce
• 1/2 red bell pepper thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup kernel corn
• 1/4 cup black beans
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 3 oz . sliced grilled chicken breast I used a Southwest seasoning on mine

Dressing:

• 1 - 6 oz . container 0% plain Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup minced cilantro
• 2 T mayo
• 1/4 c fat free half and half
• 1/2 t dry dill
• 1/4 t cayenne
• 1 t cumin
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t pepper
• 1/2 t sugar

Instructions

• In a large bowl combine the salad ingredients and top with the grilled chicken.
• Whisk all of the dressing ingredients together in a separate bowl.
• Top the salad with 1/4 of the dressing. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

This recipe makes one salad, but enough dressing for 4 salads. So meal prep for the whole week!

Tried this recipe?Mention @TwoLuckySpoons or tag #twoluckyspoons!