Southwestern Chopped Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing
A tex-mex style salad with an incredibly creamy Greek yogurt cilantro dressing that will knock your socks off!
I’m happy to report that after 11 days into 2014, I am still well into my salad phase – BBQ chicken salad, Asian cobb salad, kale salad, you name it. But with a bunch of cilantro left over in the fridge, I just had to make a cilantro-type dressing. And boy am I glad I did because this is one of the creamiest, most flavorful dressings I have ever made.
Not to mention, the dressing comes together so quickly and easily with the help of a food processor. Simply drop everything into your handy dandy food processor – I love using my Magimix for this – pulse, and that’s it!
You can definitely adjust the amount of olive oil for a a thinner dressing. I didn’t want mine too thick so that’s what the recipe here reflects. Either way, this goes so perfectly in this tex-mex style salad loaded with corn, beans, tomatoes, avocado and tortilla strips. It’s quickly become a favorite of ours, and we’ve had it almost every day this week!
Southwestern Chopped Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing
Ingredients
For the cilantro lime dressing
- 1 cup loosely packed cilantro, stems removed
- ½ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
For the salad
- 5 cups chopped romaine lettuce
- ½ cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- ½ cup canned corn kernels, drained
- ½ cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
- 1 avocado, halved, seeded, peeled and diced
- ¼ cup tortilla strips, for garnish
Instructions
for the cilantro lime dressing
- Combine cilantro, Greek yogurt, garlic and lime juice in the bowl of a food processor. With the motor running, add olive oil and vinegar in a slow stream until emulsified; set aside.
for the salad
- To assemble the salad, place romaine lettuce in a large bowl; top with tomatoes, corn, black beans and cilantro. Pour the dressing on top of the salad and gently toss to combine. Stir in avocado.
- Serve immediately, garnished with tortillas strips, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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I added a roasted poblano pepper to the dressing. It was delicious.
This looked so good but I was disapponted in the cilantro lime dressing 🙁 I only made a 1/2 of recipe so maybe that is why but not a big fan of the dressing.
Same, it was a little lacking in flavor for me.
This salad recipe looks so yummy that I just had to feature it in my “Sensational Summer Salads” roundup! Come check it out when you have a chance 🙂 xo http://dreamingofleaving.com/2016/05/10/sensational-summer-salads/
Can I replace the vinager with something else or just remove it?
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment.
I love this salad!! So simple but so so soooo good. I make this for dinner all the time. I like to break up regular tortilla chips instead of buying the tiny crouton bags of “tortilla strips” which are way marked up in price. I cut the oil in half only because I’d rather get those calories in the form of extra avocado! 🙂 Thanks so much for this great favorite recipe!
How long can I store this dressing in the refrigerator? This looks so good…
Methods for optimal food storage and shelf life should be based on good judgment and what you are personally comfortable with.
LOVE the dressing, it is so so so good. Random question – can it be frozen and thawed in the fridge? I never go through all of the dressing (gotta use the whole head of cilantro!) and I don’t want it to go to waste.
Unfortunately, I cannot answer this with certainty as I have never tried freezing this myself – there were no leftovers left to freeze! Please use your best judgment for freezing and reheating.
This salad is amazing! Not the lightest in calories but definitely a delicious meal!
It actually is pretty light in calories for a dinner! Go ahead and count them up – truly not bad at all!
Love baking with little foil packets and especially with salmon. Copper River Salmon goes pretty quick as it’s season is gone before you can blink, but Costco usually carries it. This looks sensational. Thanks!
This salad was perfection. Thank you.
I was very excited about this recipe as I’m going away for a college reunion and am bringing a chopped salad. However, I found the salad dressing recipe too garlicly, too much olive oil flavor and lacking in lime flavor. Followed it faithfully, but next time I’ll use half the garlic, a lighter olive oil and triple the amount of lime and will be sure to include the zest. Think then it will be to my liking.
Liz, please feel free to adjust the amounts as needed to suit your preferences – that’s the beauty of home cooking, right?
This is the best dressing!! I have it on so many different salads!!! Thank you for posting this recipe!
I am going to try this recipe this week. Do you think I could sub avocado for the greek yogurt in the dressing? I just dont typically buy greek yogurt because it’s expensive. Avocados are usually cheap where I shop and I try to eat a plant-based diet. I think I’ll give it a try and let you know how it turns out.
I tried it with the avocado in the dressing and it was delicious!
I made this salad earlier this week and loved it (I am a huge fan of your site and probably make at least one thing a week from it!). I had left over dressing and used it later in the week to dress some coleslaw for fish tacos – was a great change from my usual white balsamic, olive oil and lime juice dressing I usually use.
Love all your recipes and easy to follow directions!
This recipe looks absolutely amazing. The dressing sounds divine. I cannot wait to try this.
how long would this last?
Because this is a salad, I would imagine that the shelf life would not last for longer than 24 hrs.
Delicious! Just ate this for lunch. I wish I had more cilantro…I’d make more immediately!
I just made this last night for dinner and I’m so sad it’s gone after becoming leftovers for lunch. Rather than getting a rotisserie chickenI grilled chicken smothered in a mole sauce the night before. I diced everything up just before serving and tossed it all together but left the avocado and dressing on the side. I only wish I had made a double batch of the dressing because it was so good. I already plan to make this again for the week. Such a great work salad to get me through the day!
I added too much yogurt, how can I thin the dressing out without changing the taste?
I recommend adding a little bit of all the ingredients to make sure the flavors are balanced.
Any way to make this without apple cider vinegar? Do you have any idea if theres something easy to substitute that with and what it would taste like without it?
The apple cider vinegar is a key ingredient in this recipe. I do not recommend substituting or omitting.