Southwestern Salad with Homemade Ranch

Meal Prep is paramount for time-saving with our busy schedules. Thankfully, this Southwestern Salad with Homemade Ranch dressing is a complete make-ahead meal. Win! This way, all your components are ready so you can simply assemble and enjoy. Similarly, you could fully assemble your Southwestern Salads for lunches and simply keep the Ranch dressing on the side. This allows you to add right before eating to prevent soggy salads.

This post was sponsored by the Egg Farmers of Ontario, as always, all opinions are genuine.

How to Break Down Make-Ahead Meals:

You can see in the above picture the components of this Southwestern Salad with Homemade Ranch that were prepped ahead of time. Having separate, air-tight containers allows for proper storage and optimal freshness. Similarly, I love using mason jars to store homemade dressings.

To determine which ingredients you want to meal prep, peruse the recipe and commit to spend time up front to save time later. You might choose to veggie prep when you are on the phone or involve the kids in helping out as well.

For example you could:

• Cut romaine lettuce a day or two in advance
• Slice peppers
• Cut tomatoes (I added oil, garlic and pinch of Kosher salt)
• Prep your Hard-Cooked eggs (see easy recipe)
• Ranch dressing can be made ahead (see recipe below)
• Pre-cook your Bacon or chicken (store in fridge or thaw from freezer)
• Corn (pre-cooked cobs or thaw frozen)
• Open can of black beans, rinse and place in bowl

Flexible Recipes:

Meal Prepping can help cut down on food waste by choosing recipes that are flexible. This means you can use those prepped ingredients. For example, since it’s cob season, I BBQed extra cobs earlier in the week (see Meal Prep Recipes for more tips) and had them in the fridge to act as meal inspiration. Therefore, if you like certain ingredients, why not toss them in? This makes flexible or ‘fridge-cleaning’ recipes awesome — you can add what you have! Conversely, you can always omit ingredients that you are not a fan of or don’t have. Next time I make this Southwest Salad, I will be adding avocado and likely a few other ingredients I have in the fridge.

Check out your complete guide for how to Meal Prep!

Build Your Own Southwestern Salads

Meal Themes are gaining in popularity to help with meal inspiration! Consequently, try a “Build your Own Salad” night with the kids. Then, you can display all the different pre-cut and prepared foods and they can choose the ingredients they want to add and make their own unique Southwest Salad. You can do the same “Build your Own” meal theme for build your own Tacos, Naan Pizzas or Buddha Bowls.

Southwestern Salad with Homemade Ranch Recipe

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 10 minutes (for eggs)
• Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 4 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 2 bell peppers, sliced
• 3 hard cooked eggs (for easier cooking, check out how to make perfect hard cooked eggs)
• 1 cup black beans
• 3 Chicken breasts or thighs, pre-cooked and sliced
• 3 cobs of corn, or 1 cup of corn kernels
• 4 slices cooked bacon, chopped
• Tortilla chips, crumbled or on the side

Garnish: Green onions or scallions

Ranch Dressing:

• 1/3 cup 1% milk
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• Pinch salt and pepper to taste.

Directions for Southwestern Salad with Homemade Ranch:

1. Firstly, prep as many ingredients as you can in advance for a speedy salad assembly later (chopping romaine, slicing peppers, cooking chicken, etc). I always have hard-cooked eggs in the fridge and they last for a week so ideal to make ahead.
2. Next, prepare your dressing by adding mayonnaise and red wine vinegar to milk and set dressing aside. Salt and pepper may be added in addition to taste
3. Then, assemble salad with romaine or greens on the bottom and arrange your toppings in sections or toss to combine all ingredients.
4. Finally, drizzle homemade Ranch dressing on top of salad and toss to coat. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed.

Enjoy! In addition, if you try out this recipe, please leave me a comment down below!

Southwest Salad with Homemade Ranch

Yield: 4

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

This Southwest Salad is scrumptious and versatile to use the ingredients you have meal prepped!

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Ingredients

• 4 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced
• 2 bell peppers, sliced
• 3 hard cooked eggs (for easier cooking, check out how to make perfect hard cooked eggs)
• 1 cup black beans
• 3 Chicken breasts or thighs, pre-cooked and sliced
• 3 cobs of corn, or 1 cup of corn kernels
• 4 slices bacon, chopped
• Tortilla chips, crumbled or on the side
• Garnish: Green onions or scallions (LINK)
• Ranch Dressing:
• 1/3 cup 1% milk
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• Pinch salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Firstly, prep as many ingredients as you can in advance for a speedy salad assembly later (chopping romaine, slicing peppers, cooking chicken, etc). I always have hard-cooked eggs in the fridge and they last for a week so ideal to make ahead.
2. Prepare your dressing by adding mayonnaise and red wine vinegar to milk and set dressing aside. Salt and pepper may be added in addition to taste
3. Assemble salad with romaine or greens on the bottom and arrange your toppings in sections or toss to combine all ingredients.
4. Finally, drizzle homemade Ranch dressing on top of salad and toss to coat. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed.