As you Diamonds can tell, I am on a Mexican food kick! I enjoy the textures and flavors more than anything! This type of cuisine would definitely be calculated into my death row meal, along with so much sushi, the largest and most elaborate charcuterie board you have ever seen on the face of this planet, perfect chicken wings with the chunkiest blue cheese dressing to dip, a full course meal from Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse (one of my all time favorite dining experiences) an egg roll sampler from The Cheesecake Factory, and of course, a stunning, gorgeous piece of cheesecake. A couple odds and ends in between that I didn’t get to mention because well, I don’t really know how I would particularly eat that gigantic smorgasbord to begin with and this tangent can definitely be saved for another day!

I digress! Moral of the story; is that this mini taco salad bar is so tasty, maybe you’d debate putting it onto the menu of your death row meal!

What should you put in a tasty taco salad, you ask?!

• Taco meat because what is a taco salad without the meat? You can use ground chicken, turkey, or chicken, and then of course use a taco seasoning packing with the appropriate amount of water in which the package calls for, or you can season the meat yourself just as I always do. I have so many recipes on here going through the seasonings that you’ll need to create a Mexican seasoning blend!
• Sautéed onions and peppers. I mixed these in with my ground chicken. However, you can cook yours in a totally separate pan if you would like, and if you end up doing that you can season the vegetables with the exact same taco seasoning that you used on the meat!

• Shredded Mexican cheddar– because I could never have a salad without cheese!
• Cotija cheese- A Mexican parmesan cheese. One of the best for packing on extra flavor, plus it acts as a pretty garnish!
• Pinto beans. If you happen to prefer a different type of bean, you can surely use those instead!

• Freshly made guacamole! I don’t make mine as strong as I used to with fresh garlic gloves, red onions, and jalapeños. As I’ve grown older, my stomach got sensitive to those ingredients, so instead I mash in green onions, chipotle hot sauce, chili powder, and tons of fresh cilantro. Of course you can’t have guacamole without some diced Roma tomatoes either!
• Tortilla chips! I actually served up two kinds! An authentic sea salt, along with a queso seasoned chip that I spotted in the “new section” of the chip aisle!

• Mixed greens! Toss together iceberg for that crisp, cold crunch we all enjoy when it comes to feasting on fabulous tacos, and a bag of spring mix because well.. it is spring after all!

Lastly, you cannot have a salad without a delicious dressing to drizzle it off with!

• This is a sour cream salad dressing because lord knows I cannot enjoy anything related to a taco without it!

How to design the dressing?

• 1/4 cup of sour cream
• The juice of one lime.
• A squeeze of honey.
• Two tablespoons of taco sauce.
• Chopped scallions.
• Sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and a few dashes of chili powder.

Drizzle in just a touch of some good olive oil while you vastly whisk our ingredients together.

You could take this taco salad bar to complete insanity in the best way possible by adding in grilled shrimp, grilled chicken thighs, shredded carnitas, roasted poblano corn, mango or pineapple salsa, different types of hot sauces, and even a wide variety of beans to choose from. The list is always endless when building bars or boards! For those of you who have been following me for some time now, you’ll now that that is one thing I continuously preach! You can take my ideas.. the Diamond way, and make them yours. Especially when it comes to concocting salads. Salads of all kinds, can ever be created wrong!

Be sure to add some spring pizzazz into your salads, especially your taco filled ones!

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XOXO