Southwest Salad with Avocado Dressing is packed with your favorite Mexican salad fixin’s and the dressing is to live for!
I love it when the weather warms up and its time to turn in our slow cookers and soups for the grill and salads! I love a good salad and to me “good” means a salad piled high with crunchy veggies, nuts or seeds and always a good cheese – with lettuce more of an in-between filler of all other things delicious. This Southwest Salad is no exception.
Its packed with red bell peppers, tomatoes, fresh sweet corn, black beans, sunflower seeds, pepper jack cheese, and tortilla strips all bathed in the most intoxicatingly delicious creamy Avocado Dressing. The symphony of flavors and textures will make your mouth giddy!
Especially the Avocado Dressing, I could practically drink it! It’s a silky blend of avocado, sour cream (or Greek yogurt), cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and hints of salt, pepper and ground cumin. To me, the salad is almost just a vehicle to consume this luscious fiestalicious dressing. Almost.
This Southwest Salad with Creamy Avocado Dressing is a salad recipe so good you will actually be craving salad!
If you happen to be following the Weight Watchers WW plan, you’ll find a link to the WW Points on the recipe card below.
Southwest Salad with Avocado Dressing
Ingredients
SOUTHWESTERN SALAD
- 1 medium head romaine lettuce, chopped
- 1 medium ear sweet corn, kernels sliced off
- 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
- One 15 ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
- ⅓ cup roasted and salted sunflower seeds
- ½ cup grated pepper jack cheese (or more to taste)
- ½ package Tortilla Strips for Salads, for topping
AVOCADO DRESSING
- 1 small avocado, peeled and pitted
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- ¼ cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt
- ⅓ cup water, plus more as needed
- ¼ cup cilantro, loosely packed
- 2 medium garlic cloves, peeled
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
Instructions
- Add all of the Avocado Dressing ingredients to a blender and chop then puree until smooth, scraping sides down as needed. Add additional water, a tablespoon at a time, as needed to reach desired consistency. Chill while you prepare your salad ingredients. (You can also prepare dressing the day before serving and store in the refrigerator.)
- Add all Southwest Salad ingredients to a large bowl and toss to combine. Toss salad with desired amount of dressing or drizzle dressing over individual servings if not eating all of the salad immediately.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Here are a few more salads you might enjoy:
- BBQ Chipotle Salad with Tomatillo Avocado Ranch by Carlsbad Cravings
- Mexican Chopped Salad with Honey Lime Dressing by RecipeGirl
- Mexican Quinoa Salad by The Minimalist Baker
- Southwest Pepper Jack Tortellini Salad by Carlsbad Cravings
- Taco Salad in Homemade Tortilla Bowls by Two Peas and Their Pod
I made this for a get together. My changes were a) I used old cheddar, not pepper jack b) crumbled nacho chips instead of tortilla strips and c) I used spring greens mix. Still turned out awesome. ^_^
Love love love a good salad, especially when its bigger than my face! And not to mention, this one’s gorgeous. Can’t wait to try it out!
What a hearty, yummy, and delicious looking salad! The dressing sounds fantastic!
wow, this looks insane delicious and vegetarian to boot…
THANKS Lori