The Junky Salad

Continuing the easy path to dinner bliss…

Remember the taco salad recipe I posted from my reunion party?

I made it!  And it’s just as junky as ever, but slightly…how do I say this…fresher??  More nutrient dense?

I had half a bag of these left so I swapped them in for the Doritos.  Big time upgrade right there!

Crushed chips in salads make the recipe pop like no other ingredient can.  Truth be told, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a Dorito outside of the salad that this one was inspired from.  Is that weird?  Maybe I did at some birthday party when I was a teenager that I don’t recall, but I’ve never purchased them and growing up my mom definitely didn’t either.  Soooo, I’m not completely sure if these Siete chips are at all similar in taste, but the “nacho” flavor seemed like a good enough guess.  They actually ended up being way better in the salad than when I ate them plain.  What’s it called in biology when two mediocre things end up better together?  Mutualism?  Yes, I’d say both parts in this recipe were greatly enhanced by the other.  So, I wasn’t necessarily going to repurchase the Siete chips, but now I’m having second thoughts.

Moving on.  The next change up I made was in the dressing.

I did some googling to try to get to the bottom of the Catalina vs. French dressing debate and was going to try to get Catalina to stick with the original recipe.  But then the store only had one Catalina option and it had weird food dyes and I really didn’t want those, soooo…I (nervously) called an audible and bought the Zesty French dressing.  I wasn’t quite as scared about it being inauthentic for the flavor of Diane’s salad because Brianna’s has never led me astray.  Their dressings are one of the only store bought kinds I buy!  And as it turns out, it was perfect.  So so perfect.

And to compensate for the tomato flavor that the French dressing was “missing”, I just added extra tomatoes.  The freshest tomatoes ever, to be precise, since they were picked moments before going in the mix.

This is the FOURTH harvest from the garden and we can barely keep up.  Should I make pico de gallo? I’m going to need more tomato recipes!

The Junky Salad (aka my take on Diane’s Taco Salad)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 heads romaine lettuce
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 can pinto beans
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1/4 cup sliced olives
• 1/2 bag nacho flavored Siete chips
• 1/2 bottle Brianna’s zesty french dressing
• salt & pepper
• [optional: add chicken or avo]

To be clear, I made this entirely for myself.  Although I did give a deconstructed version to the kids, I saved the rest for my lunch the next day.  So it was kinda four servings, but really mostly two.  And believe me, I was SO SO excited when I got home from camp and had it waiting for me.  I know I’m alone in my love for soggy salads, but this hit the spot.  I’m contemplating making it again before Kyle gets back!

I’m going to call it the junky salad just to be cute, but it’s really pretty healthy when you analyze the ingredients!