This chicken and black bean taco salad is a healthy alternative to using ground beef. The chicken is cooked in the slow cooker with salsa, taco seasoning, cumin, and black beans and then shredded. The shredded chicken is placed over a bed of shredded romaine lettuce and topped off with cheese and cilantro-cilantro dressing. The dressing gets a lot of its flavor from avocado, cilantro, buttermilk, garlic, and lime juice. You could also prepare tacos or burritos instead of making a salad if you would prefer. Enjoy.
Chicken and Black Bean Taco Salad Recipe
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 Servings 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 1lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 tablespoon taco seasoning
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- 1 cup canned black beans (rinsed)
- 1 cup chunky salsa
- Salad-
- 6 cups chopped romaine lettuce
- ¼ cup Mexican cheese blend
- Dressing-
- ¾ cup low-fat buttermilk
- 1 small jalapeno pepper (seeded and chopped)
- ¼ cup fresh cilantro
- 1 medium avocado (peeled, pitted and chopped)
- 1 garlic clove
- 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
- juice of 1 lime
- 1/8 teaspoon cumin
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Place the chicken into the slow cooker and season with taco seasoning and cumin. Pour the salsa and black beans over the chicken.
- Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or until the chicken is tender and easily shreds with 2 forks. Shred the chicken and stir to combine with black beans and the liquid in the slow cooker. Keep warm until ready to serve.
- Combine all of the ingredients for the dressing in a blender and blend until smooth. If the dressing is too thick, add a little more buttermilk.
- To make the salad—place 1 ½ cups of lettuce onto each plate, top with a ¾ cup of the chicken mixture, about 1 tablespoon of cheese and 2 tablespoons of the dressing.