on southwest taco salad...

This Southwest Taco Salad is superb. There are quite a few ingredients but it's worth it! When you take a bite all those flavors come together to equal nothing sort of amazing. I cooked up enough ingredients so that I could have this salad every single day for one week and I was okay with it. That good, I swear.

Now if you have a husband like mine who has no problem eating salads but wanted a little more matter well all you have to do is combine all these ingredients into a taco shell or tortilla shell. That's what I did for him and he was happy. Honestly speaking that's really not much different but in a man's mind it's not a salad soooo... Also you can hold the meat or enjoy it with ground beef or chicken. Usually we do the chicken route but for the sake of doing something different we did ground beef. I'm not a fan of beef but ground beef in a taco or taco salad like this is alright.

It's one of those salads that are hearty enough to be a meal which is great because in the end you are full but feeling great about what you just consumed! Guilty free my friends. If that isn't a winner then I don't know what it.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef or chicken breast, chopped
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoon taco seasoning 
1 can black beans, drained & rinsed
1 cup cooked Spanish rice
1 tomato, diced
1 bunch lettuce 
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
hand full of crushed tortilla chips
cilantro lime dressing 

Directions:
1// Saute ground beef or chicken. Add 1/4 cup water and taco seasoning. Heat until meat is cooked all the way through. 
2// Assemble salad starting with lettuce. Then layer rice, black beans, ground beef/chicken, tomato, cheddar cheese and cilantro lime dressing drizzled on top with crushed tortilla chips. Yum!

*find recipes for Cilantro Lime Dressing (here) and Homemade Taco seasoning (here).  

Enjoy!!