Santa Fe Salad
Crunchy tortilla strips and fried onions, fresh tomatoes, crisp lettuce, creamy beans, and hearty ground meat, all topped with salsa and ranch dressing make this Santa Fe Style salad one you will want to come back to again and again.
Salad with Staying Power
During the hot months of the year I become a bit of a salad fiend. But as a food lover, I want my salad to have some staying power…ya know?
This is one of my absolute favorite salads ever. Seriously. It is so yummy. Plus, I use all the leftovers from the cans of corn, and kidney beans I opened to make taco soup for the next day. (I also cooked extra ground beef, so it would be two meals with only one prep) Win-win. For this, you need Fresh Gourmet Lightly Salted Crispy Onions, and Fresh Gourmet Tortilla Strips Santa Fe Style.
Trust me, they make this salad AWESOME! From ordinary to EXTRAordinary. But if you don’t have them, it is still a pretty tasty salad.
Just a note: when you prepare your ground beef/turkey, or whatever you are using (leave it out if you are vegetarian), focus on flavor. I always cook mine in some salsa with the seasonings, and it just makes it extra flavorful. So good. Enjoy!
Ingredients
What do you need to make this salad amazing?
- Tortilla Strips: Do NOT skip this, it makes things crispy, and salty, and delicious. They are a must on this salad. And you can even make them yourself if you can’t find them at the store.
- Crispy Onions: You know what I am talking about, those fried ones you buy that way. They add both mega flavor and crunch.
- Beans: Kidney beans or black beans. They add protein, creaminess, health, and more!
- Corn: The perfect way to add some sweetness to your salad.
- Romaine Lettuce: This is key, you want the crunch and flavor of the romaine for this salad. If you want other lettuces, mix them in, but don’t fully replace.
- Ground Beef: Enhance the flavor your ground beef by cooking it in salsa and with some garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Then every bite with it is bursting with flavor.
- Olives: Such a crazy good addition. Heft, flavor, and honestly a great way to add some texture to your salad.
- Fresh tomatoes: A must. When shopping for your tomatoes look for ones that are nice and ripe. Smell them. If they smell good they will taste good. If they don’t smell like anything, they won’t taste like anything.
- Avocado: Adds creaminess and fat, and rounds out the salad.
How To Top Santa Fe Salad
One of the things that makes this salad so great is it is full of flavor, crunch, and deliciousness. But it is also easy to customize. You can top it however you would like:
- Salsa: Add some salsa to the salad in place of dressing for added flavor, and a healthier, lower fat option. I love this blender salsa for this.
- Ranch: I am a huge fan of ranch dressing, but if you want to make it even better, you can add an avocado to it and blend, or cilantro to it and blend, or lime juice to it, and you guessed it blend. Or even all 3! Have fun with it.
- Make Your Own Dressing: Make a tangy lime vinaigrette. So yummy.
Santa Fe Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup Fresh Gourmet Santa Fe Style Tortilla Strips
- 1/2 cup Crispy Onions lightly salted
- 1/2 cup corn kernels
- 1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes cut in half
- 1/2 cup colby jack cheese cubed
- 1/2 avocado diced
- 1/4 cup olives sliced
- 1/2 cup red kidney beans or black beans
- 1/2 lb ground beef
- 1/3 cup Salsa your favoirte
- 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 head romaine leaf lettuce washed and chopped
- Salsa or ranch dressing
Instructions
- Wash and chop lettuce, set aside,
- Cook ground beef by browning in a saute pan with 1/3 c salsa and garlic powder.
- Slice, chop, and dice all other ingredients.
- Assemble salad according to preference
- Top with ranch dressing or salsa
Nutrition
Our recipe card software calculates these nutrition facts based on averages for the above ingredients, different brands, and quality of produce/meats may have different nutritional information, always calculate your own based on the specific products you use in order to achieve accurate macros for this recipe.
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