This chicken taco salad is one of our favourite meals – juicy, grilled cilantro lime chicken tossed with salad, tortilla chips and tasty taco ranch dressing! You’ll be eating it all summer long.
Who else loves taco salad? Or taco anything really, I’m not that picky. If taco flavours of some sort are involved, I’m probably pretty happy with my meal.
Anyone else?
This chicken taco salad is probably one of my favourites though. I’ve made it more times then I can count, and we are always happy with this meal.
The chicken is marinated with a cilantro lime marinade and then grilled to juicy perfection. The salad is filled with all your favourite taco toppings – lettuce, corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, olives, avocado, green onions, cilantro and tortilla chips.
And the dressing is fantastic. It actually might be my favourite part of this salad.
When I’m making a quick taco salad for dinner we sometimes just use plain leftover cooked chicken, all the veggies, and sour cream and salsa for "dressing".
And while that’s tasty, it doesn’t compare to this version.
This chicken is just so flavourful and amazing with that cilantro lime marinade. And the dressing is SO good.
Simple to make, it’s just mayo, sour cream, ranch seasoning, taco seasoning and lime juice – but it goes so well with the other flavours happening here. It really makes the salad in my opinion so don’t skip it!
I know a lot of people don’t think salad makes a meal (my husband might be one of them!), but this one definitely does. I don’t even get any complaints from my family, who typically fall in the "salad is not a meal" camp.
Everyone here is happy having this salad as a meal.
Possibly that’s because they get tortilla chips with their dinner.
That’s okay though, because we are all happy when this salad makes an appearance at the dinner table!
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Chicken Taco Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 3-4 Chicken Breast
- 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
- juice from one Lime
- 2 cloves Garlic minced
- 1/4 cup Fresh Cilantro chopped
- 1 teaspoon Chili Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper
- 2 cups Corn Kernels
- 1 Red Pepper chopped
- 1 Avocado chopped
- 1/2 cup Fresh Cilantro
- 2 cups Grape Tomatoes halved
- 1 head Romaine Lettuce chopped
- 3-4 Green Onion sliced
- 1 cup Black Olives sliced
- Tortilla Chips
- 1/2 cup Mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream
- 1/2 tablespoon Taco Seasoning
- 1/2 tablespoon Ranch Seasoning
- juice from one Lime
Instructions
- In a 9×9 inch baking dish, whisk together the olive oil, lime juice, garlic, cilantro, chili powder, cumin, salt and black pepper.
- Place the chicken breasts in the marinade, turning to coat.
- Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until you’re ready to grill, marinating for at least half an hour and up to 2 hours.
- In a small bowl, whisk together mayo, sour cream, ranch seasoning, taco seasoning and lime juice and set aside.
- Preheat the grill to medium high heat.
- Grill the marinated chicken for 8-10 minutes per side until cooked through. Remove from grill, let it rest for 5-10 minutes, and then dice it up.
- Serve the chicken with the rest of the salad ingredients and the dressing. We like to put everything separately on the table, so everyone can build their own salad with the ingredients they like best.
Notes
- The chicken is best if marinated for at least a half hour and up to two hours. As there is lime juice in the marinade, I don’t recommend marinating for any longer than two hours, as the chicken can start to break down from the acid in the lime juice after that point, and have a mushy texture.
- You may not need all of the salad dressing.