Southwest Chopped Salad with Mexi-Ranch Dressing

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With our CSA in full swing and the farmer’s market producing more and more vegetables each week, I’ve been making a lot of entree salads.   Sometimes I put beef on them, sometimes chicken, and other times I don’t put any protein on them.  This week I made a delicious vegetarian salad filled with chopped veggies, cheese, and quesadillas.   Oh yeah, I made quesadillas to put in the salad which turned out to be delicious.

My chopped salad was a combination of lettuce, onions, radishes, and peppers from the farmers market and fresh corn, black beans, jalapenos, avocado, and Kerrygold Skellig cheese from the grocery store.  I chopped everything up, tossed it in a bowl, and put it on our plates.

Now, I never feel like a fancy salad is complete without some homemade dressing. This dressing is more like semi-homemade but it’s really tasty and it’s my own combination of ingredients.  I call it a Mexi-Ranch dressing.   It’s basically a combination of Ranch dressing, southwest salsa, and mashed avocado.   It’s refreshing and went perfectly with our southwest salad.

The last part and quite possibly best part of the salad was the quesadilla.   I decided to keep it simple and just made a Kerrygold Aged Cheddar and jalapeno quesadilla.   It bubbled up nicely as the tortilla turned golden brown and the cheese melted into gooey goodness.   I cut the quesadilla into 8 wedges and put 4 on each of our salads.

This is a great summer lunch or dinner salad.   It’s filling because of all the fresh vegetables as well as the cheesy quesadilla.  It also looks pretty because of all the brightly colored vegetables.   The spiciness of the jalapenos is really cooled off by the Mexi-Ranch dressing.

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Southwest Chopped Salad with Mexi-Ranch Dressing

Yield: 4 salads

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 28 minutes

A beautifully colored chopped salad filled with vegetables and cheese then garnishes with spicy quesadillas and served with a cool Mexi-Ranch dressing.

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Ingredients

For the Salad:

• 6 c. lettuce, chopped
• 1 ear corn, kernals cut off of it
• 1/2 c. black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 2 jalapenos, minced
• 1 avocado, chopped
• 1/4 c. Kerrygold Skellig Cheese, chopped
• 1/2 onions, chopped
• 2 radishes, chopped

For the Mexi-Ranch Dressing:

• 1/2 c. Ranch dressing
• 1/4 c. southwest salsa
• 1/4 c. avocado, mashed

For the Quesadilla:

• 4 flour tortillas
• 2 t.easpoonsbutter
• 1/2 c. Kerrygold Aged Cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
• 2 jalapenos, minced

Instructions

1. In a large bowl combine all of the salad ingredients and toss to combine. Place two cups of salad on each of 4 plates.
2. To make the dressing, simply combine the ranch dressing, salsa, and mashed avocado in a small bowl. Mix until combined. Set aside.
3. To make the quesadillas, butter one side of a tortilla and put it in a large skillet over medium heat. Place half the cheese on top of the tortilla and sprinkle with half the jalapenos. Place another tortilla on top with the top of it buttered. Cook for 5 minutes on one side, flip, then cook for 3 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and cut into 8 wedges. Repeat for remaining quesadilla.
4. Place 4 quesadilla wedges on each salad. Serve with Mexi-Ranch dressing.

Notes

A Hezzi-D Original Recipe

I was provided with the cheese for this recipe by Kerrygold but all photos and opinions are 100% my own.