My friend made this salad for lunch one day at her house and I immediately fell in love with it!! I served it to my family and the feeling was mutual — it’s a winner. The first time my daughter tasted it, she couldn’t stop eating it!! The recipe makes a HUGE bowl that easily feeds my family of five. There is typically some left over for a few of us to have it for lunch the next day.
The ingredients listed below are from the the original recipe. I made some modifications to save money of which the biggest is making my own broccoli slaw. I save at least $1 by making my own and still have broccoli florets to use in another meal.
Ingredients:
1 bag romaine lettuce (I use 1 head of romaine)
1 bag broccoli slaw (I use stalks from broccoli and 3 or 4 carrots)
3 green onions, sliced
1 16 oz can corn, drained
1 16 oz can black beans, drained (I typically don’t have canned, so I use 3/4 cups dried beans and cook according to directions)
1 c. shredded jack cheese
2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced (I use a pint jar of my canned chicken)
BBQ sauce
ranch dressing
tortilla chips
salsa or taco sauce
Directions:
- Cut or rip romaine into bite size pieces. Rinse to clean.
- Dry romaine either by letting it sit in colander or using a salad spinner as pictured above. I LOVE my salad spinner. I always used to forget to clean the lettuce and leave enough time for it dry. That made for many wet salads. Now I don’t have to worry about it! I just get it spinning while I prep all the other ingredients. Every time I walk by, I give it another spin.
- Coat chicken with BBQ sauce.
- Cut broccoli florets from stalk and put in fridge for another use. Wash, peel and shred stalks.
- Wash, peel and shred carrots. This will give you your broccoli slaw.
- Combine romaine, broccoli slaw, green onions, corn, black beans, cheese and chicken. Toss.
- Serve with ranch dressing, tortilla chips and salsa or taco sauce.
Verdict: This is such a pretty and flavorful salad!! It is one of my families favorite meal-size salads and they look forward to having it. It comes together very quickly and the leftovers hold up very well. I’ve used various BBQ sauces and that really changes the flavor, so you can have some fun experimenting with that.
