Southwest Chopped Chicken Salad

I've had my eye on this salad via pinterest for a while.  I decided to try to make it work for our lunches last week.  It turns out that it might be my new favorite salad!  It has a creamy but not overly heavy southwest dressing and lots of stuff other than lettuce - corns, black beans, avocado, what could be better!

My grocery store happened to be out of cilantro (I couldn't believe it either) so I made it with out cilantro and left the tortilla chips out as well to make it a touch healthier. This made about 3 days worth of lunches for Bill and I.   I thought it would be a pain to take at lunch, but it turned out so good that I made it again for us to eat this week!

Salad Fixings

Dressing

Southwest Chopped Chicken Salad
From: Greens and Chocolate
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: None

Ingredients:
2 cups shredded chicken
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can sweet yellow corn (or 1 cup frozen corn, thawed)
2 roma tomatoes, diced
4 green onions, sliced
1 head ice berg lettuce, washed and chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
2 ripe avocados, diced
1 cup crushed tortilla chips (optional)

Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup Greek yogurt (= two 5.3 oz containers)
1 Tbsp ranch seasoning
1 1/2 Tbsp taco seasoning


Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients together, excluding tortilla chips

2.  In a small bowl stir all dressing ingredients together.  Pour dressing over salad, starting with about half of the dressing.  Toss to combine then gradually add more dressing until it is dressed to your liking.  Top with tortilla chips (If desired)

My modification in prep for to go lunches: Mix together the chicken, corn, black beans, tomatoes, onion, pepper, and cilantro (if you have it) in a bowl and store it in the fridge.  I then had a small bowl of the dressing and store in fridge.  Each day, put fresh lettuce and some of the chicken mixture in a to go container, then added the avocado.  Bring some of the dressing in a separate container to add at the time.