A lot of you know I’m a HUGE McDonald's Southwest Salad fan. It’s, by far, my favorite fast food salad. The flavors are perfectly combined and, in my opinion, no dressing is necessary. So I set off to make a knock off home version. I wanted to for a while and then a few email requests have nudged me to do it sooner rather then later.

I am very happy with the result. It’s not exactly like the McDonald's version but it’s close enough for me. Plus I had some ulterior motives while coming up with the recipe. I wanted to use ingredients in their whole forms, for example 1 can of corn. I mean who has 2 tablespoon of black beans or 1 oz of green chilis hanging around the house. It’s just not realistic. However, because of this the recipe makes about 5 servings.

My goal was to create the salad “topper” that you can use on top of your favorite salad greens. I happened to eat mine over a mound of baby spinach, as it was all I had but you can use anything. A romaine lettuce blend would work best for mimicking McDonald's version.

S0 here you go. I hope you like it, I know it cured my craving for a fast food salad I like the fact that I know EXACTLY what’s in it.

Ingredients

10oz cooked grilled chicken (happens to be the size of 1 short cuts bag ;~)
1 can (15.5oz) can of black beans rinsed and drained
1 small can (8.5oz) of yellow corn (rinsed and drained - I used no salt added)
½ red onion diced small
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 small can (4.5 oz) diced green chilies lightly drained
1 oz fancy shredded Mexican cheese blend
2 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoon honey (42g)
1 tablespoon Tabasco (may want to cut back if you don’t like spicy)
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin

Instructions

Place the chicken, beans, corn, onion, tomatoes,green chilies and cheese in a large bowl.

Whisk the lime juice, honey, Tabasco, chili powder, and cumin. Pour over the chicken mixture and blend. Let sit until ready to serve. I didn’t wait long and it was good but it get’s better the longer it sits!

Scoop on top of your favorite salad greens!

Here’s another shot. I wasn’t too happy with any of them. For some reason I suck at photographing salads! But I did get a cute shot of the toddler helping me cut up the onion with one of those hand choppers.

As for the NI, I used a cup measure spoon and scooped it over the greens. Then I measured 4 more cups out, that's how I came up with 5 servings.

Update: OK, I used some of the leftovers tonight to make nachos on baked tortilla chips. OH MY WORD! Sinfully good! I topped the chips with a few tablespoons, another 1 oz of cheese put it under the broiler and dipped in salsa. YUMMY!

📖 Recipe