Southwestern Salad with Chicken, Avocado and Cilantro $5.24

Kim and I are bringing back a salad we both love and couldnt imagine not having for 10 more months! So we altered it, maybe even healthed it up a bit more, and truthfully it is such a versatile salad, I am sure it might be back one more time, with new additions to it. In this creation of ours we have added chicken and avocado, which will up the protien in each serving because of the chicken and the super food - avocado will add plenty of omega 3 to the mix. We also changed the flavor slightly by adding a hit of cilantro to the dressing.

What you will need:
1 lb rommaine lettuce .65
1 cup black beans .30
1 cup red pepper(or orange if that is all you got, as what was the case for me)$1.25
1 cup frozen or canned corn .25
2 cups shredded chicken $1.40
1 ripe avocado diced .99
1/2 cup tortilla chips chopped up in small pieces.15
1 cup southwestern dressing(1 cup ranch dressing, 1 tablespoon taco seasoning and 1 tablespoon cilantro finely chopped) .35

season chicken with salt and pepper and place on baking sheet, bake for 15 minutes on 350, or until fully cooked
In meantime wash and chop rommaine lettuce into bitesize pieces
toss in large bowl with peppers, corn, beans
when chicken is cooked, remove from oven and sred in bitesize pieces
add to salad
add chips(optional)
toss with dressing
add avocado at the end

I opted for no chips in my salad, just to save on a bit of calories and fat, I also used orange peppers instead of red. There really are no rules in cooking. In my house, the rule is try to make it as healthy as possible and try to make it taste good. I never freakout if I am missing an ingredient, 9 times out of 10, the recipe will be fine without. I happen to have orange peppers left over from a catering job Kim and I did, and since I DONT waste anymore or do unecessary spending, I decided to use up my orange peppers and forgo buying red for this week.