This Chopped Mexican Salad with Lime Cilantro Dressing is perfect for lunch or as a side dish at a Spring or Summer barbeque. Chock full of black beans, roasted corn, avocado, red bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and red onion, this salad has lots of textures and will keep you coming back for more.
This Chopped Mexican Salad is one of the salads I’ve made for parties for my husband’s friends. It’s always a challenge coming up with healthy dishes for my husband’s friends that are mainly meat eaters and act like kids when it comes to eating their vegetables. The topping is based on the same ingredients as my Roasted Corn, Black Bean and Avocado Salsa recipe, just without adding the seasonings (since the seasonings are in the dressing).
This Mexican chopped salad reminds me of one of my favorite salads at a local restaurant – they call it Picadillo Salad – which has all the ingredients I’ve included in my recipe plus jicama. Chock full of black beans, roasted corn, red bell peppers, tomatoes, avocado and red onion, this salad is fun to eat. I made a bright Cilantro Lime Dressing to go on top, simply blending fresh cilantro, fresh lime juice, olive oil, some honey, salt and pepper together.
You can serve this Mexican chopped salad with baked tortilla strips (or crumbled baked tortilla chips) for some extra crunch if you like. Either way, this chopped Mexican salad is refreshingly good. 
Mexican Chopped Salad with Lime Cilantro Dressing
Ingredients
Mexican Chopped Salad
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 cup frozen corn or 1 cob of corn
- 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans or one 15-ounce can
- 1 avocado diced
- 1 red bell pepper diced
- 1 small red onion
- 1 cucumber chopped
- 8 cups romaine lettuce chopped
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese or Cojita cheese
Lime Cilantro Dressing
- 1 bunch cilantro leaves rinsed well
- 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2-3 tablespoons honey to your taste
- salt and pepper to taste
Optional
- baked corn chips crumbled
Instructions
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Heat oil in a pan and add corn. Saute until corn gets some brown spots and caramelizes a little bit. Remove.
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In a large bowl, combine beans, avocado, red bell pepper, red onion, cucumber and corn.
Lime CIlantro Dressing
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To make Lime Cilantro Dressing, feed cilantro leaves through food processor tube and process until finely minced. Add lime juice and process a few seconds. Slowly pour olive oil through food processor tube and process until dressing emulsifies. Add honey, season with salt and pepper, and process a few seconds to combine.
To Serve
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Place a large handful of romaine lettuce on salad plate. Top with a few large spoonfuls of corn, black bean mixture, and 1 tablespoon of crumbled feta cheese. Drizzle a little Lime Cilantro Dressing on top. Sprinkle with crumbled tortilla chips.
This is exactly the sort of salad I would happily eat for lunch any day of the week. You always have such great ideas, Jeanette!
Dara – we have similar tastes (I always love seeing what you’re up to in your kitchen!) so I think you’d really enjoy this salad. Lots of crunch!
Sounds like a delicious salad!
Thanks Kalyn – it’s finally getting warm out and this salad is one of the first I made this Spring.
This salad looks so colorful, wholesome and deeelish, Jeanette! I’d love to try it!
Thanks Georgia – this salad is great for entertaining because it’s so colorful. I just made this for a party this weekend.
Delicious-looking salad! Makes me wish for summer! 🙂
My kind of salad too! Love the refreshing cilantro dressing.
Thanks Angie – the dressing is bright and refreshing!
This is so light and festive–perfect for a summer get-together! I love cilantro. 🙂
Absolutely my kind of salad!! Loving all the ingredients, in particular the lime and avos. Too funny about the others liking more meat, we have some friends like that too, burgers, burgers, and more burgers with an occasional braat on the side. Scoop me up this salad any day and I’d be a happy girl!
Happy Mother’s Day Jeanette!
Cleaning out my In Box and found this one …YUM, Jeanette!! Must make for sure! 🙂
xo,
Shirley
Thanks Shirley – I need to make this again soon especially now that it’s so hot out!
Lovely recipe, thank you! I made this salad as a meal, adding smoked chicken breast, and it was a delicious way to start a summer evening!
Louie, smoked chicken breast sounds like a nice addition to this summer salad!
Loved this salad! Brought to a 4th of July BBQ. So fresh, and welcoming in the heat.
Thanks so much Heidi – so glad you tried this and liked it! Thanks so much for coming back to let me know how it turned out.
This looks amazing! Adding it to my menu for next week.
Thanks Jill – I hope you enjoy this salad!