20pitted Ripe Olivessliced or ⅓ – ½ cup sliced Ripe Black Olives
12 - 15Grape Tomatoes cut into halfapprox. ¾ cup
¾ - 1cupcanned Red Kidney Beans
¾cupfinely grated Cheddar Cheese
½cupThousand ISland Salad Dressing
⅓cupSalsaI used tostito mild salsa
2teaspoonTaco Seasoning
Instructions
Heat oil in a pan and saute ground chicken with one envelope of taco seasoning until chicken is cooked. I used a stainless steel pan and it took about 10 – 12 minutes to cook ground chicken. If using a nonstick pan, use less oil.
In a large bowl, toss lettuce, olives, tomatoes, onions, ground chicken and keep aside.
Mix together thousand island dressing, salsa and taco seasoning (listed below salsa).
Take salad in a serving bowl, sprinkle cheddar cheese and pour desired dressing over it and serve.
Notes
I did not have a can of chopped green chilies and highly recommend using it.
The original recipe called for lots of crushed tortilla chips. Husband did not want any and hence left it out. However, I added some crushed tostitos tortilla chips and liked the crunchiness it gave to the salad.
Adjust veggies in the salad to one’s preference. I used less veggies and more ground chicken as that is how we prefer.
I used Taco Seasoning to season ground chicken. A variation to this would be chili powder, garam masala and ginger garlic past
I skipped 1-2 tsp. of sugar as we do not like too much sweet in savory food.
One will not need all this dressing for this salad.