Healthy Chicken Avocado Taco Salad

Why did Olive Sunshine create a Healthy Chicken Avocado Taco Salad recipe? There are always those people who go to a Mexican Restaurant and order a taco salad. I am not one of those people – but they exist. I mean, if you are going to go to a Mexican restaurant, get a deluxe burrito or an order of shrimp quesadillas. How about some ooey goey nachos? But a salad at a Mexican Restauant? I will need some convincing.

Taco Salads areNot Always Healthy

There are often unpleasant FACTS behind taco salads. Usually in a deep fried saturated taco shell, with greasy ground beef and loaded with sub-par cheese – they are not even healthy. What is often thought to be the healthier choice is actually a horrible choice when you can have shrimp tacos as a much healthier choice. Often the Taco Salad is the worst thing on the menu! To put it in perspective, a McDonald’s Big Mac is lower in calories and fat.

Healthy Chicken Avocado Taco Salad Pops with Freshness

The Healthy Chicken Avocado Taco Salad is the best of both worlds. Savory deliciousness and all of the healthy attributes one would expect from a salad. Now all those people who order salads will make us burrito lovers second-guess our choice. It is wonderful to to enjoy something that is good for them as well as just plain delicious.

My first big a-ha on this salad is starting with quality chicken. Instead of getting store bought rotisserie chicken, boil your own chicken. You are in control of the quality of chicken and what is on it. I added onions, carrots, low sodium chicken broth and cilantro – so much low sodium flavor – to my pot of boiling water. Every bite of shredded chicken was moist and savory.

Black beans, manzella tomatoes, avocado, and fresh cilantro leaves makes the salad pop with freshness. All of these delicious ingredients just wake up that crispy iceberg lettuce and serve as the perfect backdrop to the savory shredded chicken. I use Penzy’s Arizona Dreaming for southwestern season on the oven-baked white corn tortilla strips. The tortilla strips add the crunch one craves on a taco salad without the guilt of the deep fried shell.

The Secret Sauce (Not the Big Mac’s)

The secret sauce (literally) is the Creamy Cilantro Avocado Dressing. I dress the iceberg lettuce with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and then this delictable dressing. Now when you go to the Olive Sunshine recipe, you will find the Creamy Basil Avocado Dressing. That was the original recipe. When I subsitute the basil with dill, I was impressed so I thought – why not cilantro? Cilantro is perfect for Mexicali dishes and this did not disappoint. The moral of this story (or paragraph) is this dressing can have the herb which best fits the occassion. I used a FULL CUP of cilantro resulting in a deep green of powerful flavor that literally made this salad FIRE!

Now I am a convert. I would certainly order a “taco salad” if that salad were the Olive Sunshine version Healthy Chicken Avocado Taco Salad. Who knew I would ever mature in this manner? I have Mediterraneanized Taco Tuesday and am so happy to have found the perfect salad choice for all the salad lovers out there!