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I have finally found a salad recipe that tastes as good as the ones I eat at restaurants – thanks for the great recipe!
Suma
Avvvvvocado!
Calling all the avocado lovers. *whole world raises hand*
Today’s southwestern salad is so super simple and classic – just spicy golden roasted sweet potatoes tossed with sweet corn (fresh or grilled? – you choose), black beans, chopped romaine lettuce, and a cool n’ creamy avocado dressing that is packed with cilantro, lime, and other good things.
I mean, what can I say? It’s not the world’s most cray-z-awesome creative combination – it’s just what my mouth wants to eat every day all day in the summatime.
Let’s get right down to it. I adore this salad for many reasons, one of them being that you can actually just omit the lettuce (umm I didn’t just say that 🙅) and toss the roasted sweet potatoes, corn, black beans, and avocado dressing together for more of a Southwestern Salad meets *Chips and Dip for Lunch* situation.
Judging by how closely our food tastes align most of the time in this internet food blog space, I’m going to guess that you’ll be as obsessed as I have been for the last five hundred lunches.
😍😍😍😍😍
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Insider Tip: if you are going the chip route, and if you can find chips with a spicy hit to them, you will be in spicy-cool Southwestern-flavored heaven.
**UPDATE: per reader request, here is the link to the (spicy!) chips that I will now go on to rave about. This is an affiliate link to buy them on Amazon. You might be able to find them in store as well – I got mine at Byerly’s.**
Kinda like how I bought these sweet potato chipotle tortilla chips the other day, and like how I found out as I broke into the bag on the way home from the store that they were WAYYYY too spicy to eat on their own, and like how those spicy chipotle chips then became the perfect scooping mechanism for this southwestern salad because the coolness of the salad + the heat of the chips were a match just made for each other. The kick of the chipotle with the crunch of the chip texture with the luscious, cooling avocado…
And then there’s that moment you realize that your post about a nice, real food, flavorful, healthy and whole southwestern salad has turned into a love letter to PACKAGED CHIPS.
🎶 I see your truuuue colors shining through 🎶
This southwestern salad takes about 30 minutes to prep, start to finish.
Get the sweet potatoes going, and while those bbs are doing their yummy thing with the cumin and chili in the oven, make the dressing and chop up the lettuce and drain and rinse your corn and beans.
If you want to be extra deliciously awesome, I highly recommend using fresh sweet corn and grilling or roasting it. I did that one other time when I made this southwestern salad combo happen and it was D to the Licious!
On the other hand, if you’re just getting home from work and you’re hungry for dinner and you have about 2 seconds before you have to start Round 2 of more work in the evening (hiiii this is my life right now for exciting reasons that will soon be made known), then just using canned corn and beans will be right up your alley.
Literally right at this second I just had a vision of tossing some sizzling tequila-lime-esque shrimp in with the corn and beans and sweet potatoes, and covering it in the avocado cilantro dressing, and gobbling it all down in a moment of ultimate southwestern salad bliss.
Will someone please do that for me?
Spicy Southwestern Salad with Avocado Dressing
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 4 big salads 1x
Description
This healthy Spicy Southwestern Salad recipe has roasted sweet potatoes, black beans, corn, lettuce, and creamy avocado dressing!
Ingredients
For the Salad
- 2 sweet potatoes
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 heaping teaspoon each cumin and chili powder (plus a sprinkle of cayenne if you like it hot)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 14-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 14-ounce can sweet corn, rinsed and drained
- 1 romaine heart, chopped
For the Cilantro Dressing:
- half an avocado
- 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup cilantro leaves and stems
- 1 small clove of garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- a squeeze of lime juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bite-sized pieces. Mix the olive oil, cumin, and chili powder together in a small bowl. Brush mixture on sweet potatoes. Roast for 10 minutes. Stir or shake the pan. Turn heat up to 425, and roast for another 10-15 minutes. Check, stir, and bake until the sweet potatoes are just barely roasty-brown on the outside. Season with salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, pulse all the dressing ingredients in a food processor until mostly smooth.
- Toss the beans, corn, lettuce, and sweet potatoes with the dressing. Serve with chips and/or the other half of the avocado for extra yum!
Notes
This recipe can be made vegan by swapping the Greek yogurt with a non-dairy yogurt alternative – even just a little hunk of tofu would work, or maybe the whole avocado instead of half. But don’t use oil – the oil and avocado don’t really blend together well (I speak from experience).
HERE ARE THE SPICY CHIPS. They are really spicy and really good. This is an affiliate link to order a box of them on Amazon.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Tex Mex
Keywords: southwestern salad, avocado dressing, spicy southwestern salad
Frequently Asked Questions For This Southwest Salad
The dressing will keep for 2-3 days before it starts to brown.
It will be a little less thick and creamy, but could work! You could also sub in this Jalapeño Ranch instead for an avocado-free dressing.
Yes! I’d just warm it in the microwave or sauté/char it on the stove before adding to the salad.
Skip the yogurt in the dressing and increase the lime juice by just a bit for more zing, or use a plant-based yogurt instead. If you want to replace the creaminess without yogurt, you could also sub in some mayonnaise.
Grilled chicken would be amazing! But if you have an air fryer, I’d highly recommend this chicken recipe.
PS. Totally need to say thank you for your responses on yesterday’s post. I couldn’t sleep last night – my mind was too busy being completely overwhelmed by your kind, encouraging, real-people-real-life words. ♡
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of best healthy sweet potato recipes. Check it out!
Really good salad. I didn’t think I would be full with salad but tbf I put grilled chicken as my protein.
I don’t have black beans ready so I substitute it with red kidney beans. And I also don’t have a lot of romaine lettuce left and subbed it with boston lettuce.
Overall great recipe!
Soo good! Easy to make dairy free too, just leave out the sour cream and add an Avacado! I’ve never liked sweet potatos but I do now!
The dressing needs more salt. Dressings need to be powerful since it is going to flavor the entire salad. I had to double to salt to bring out the flavors in the dressing. Not a bad salad.
This was absolutely incredible and so much easier to make than I expected! I waited so long because I was intimated by making a homemade dressing, but I was so happy I tried it out. It will now be a weekly regular on the menu.
What can you substitute for the avocado and still maintain the creaminess of the dressing? (There is an avocado allergy in the family)
Hi Rebecca! Thanks for the question. You could try soaked cashews!
I wanted to love this with all the yummy ingredients but sadly it lacked flavor, i found the dressing to be really bland and ended up tossing it. It wont stop me from trying more of your recipes
Cool recipe but I wanted more flavor. Had to use all avocado for the dressing but it was still really creamy. Family ate it up topped with crushed chips and shredded cheese. Would definitely make again but maybe with spiced beans!
Hi! Can I use frozen corn instead of canned here?
For sure!
So good! I usually stay away from salads because they don’t satisfy my hunger but this one is so good! Husband loved it too. Definitely a repeat.
Amazing!
this is great. super easy to make during the remote work days and super tasty. leaves me feeling full and healthy.
i usually throw the beans and corn in the cast iron to get the corn toasted then finish the top off with some cotija to give it a bit of a street corn vibe.
thanks for the great recipe
Sounds amazing! Thanks for the comment!
I made this and added tofu to give it a bit more bulk. TBH I think it would be better without the tofu… It was good as is.
SPICEY SOUTHWESTERN SALAD!!! Put potatoes in the bowl of spices to coat. Roasted 20 minutes on 400. Perfect! Yummy fragrance in my kitchen! Love all you recipes! Always turn out fantastic. And I use to think I was a bad cook! NOT!
We’re so happy you liked the recipe, Nancy! Thanks for the comment!
Only change I made is that I cooked the sweet potatoes in the microwave after chopping in pieces. Turned out perfect & no hot kitchen. Omitted lettuce.
Great summer recipe when you don’t want to turn on oven.
Thanks for sharing, Mary!
I can never get my husband to eat salad – until today! Added some juicy grilled chicken (anyone else’s husband refuse to eat a meal if it doesn’t have meat?) and this salad was total perfection!
Yay! So happy to hear this, Sara!
This was bomb.com. I am not a salad person but have trying to get more into them since they’re “healthy” for you haha so I’m really excited I found this one because it so yummy!!
Glad you enjoyed this salad, Andrea!
I trust your site. Avacafo dressing is a 10+! Trying the southwestern salad tonight. Your recipes always turn out right! This is my go to site for fantastic food! Giving it 5 stars prior to trying it! I have faith!
I made this last night and it was STUPID good. I added some thinly sliced red onions & a little bit of goat cheese over the top and served it with plantain chips and my family literally would not stop telling me how good it was.
Woot woot! Goat cheese and plantain chips – YES!
My husband and I were disappointed in this recipe. It was bland….we felt like the salad needed something else. The dressing was very good but just not overwhelmed with the salad.
Just wondering how long this dressing will last in the fridge if I wanted to meal prep for some lunches??
I really enjoyed the salad itself, but had a hard time getting any flavor out of the dressing. I wound up tossing out the avocado cilantro dressing and making a homemade ranch for it. The roasted sweet potatoes in it tasted delicious.
This is so so good. We’re not big lettuce people so I usually just chop up extra avocado for a green thing. And also add extra lime.
Can I make this for meal for a week ?
southwestern salad combo happen and it was D to the Licious!
i am a lover of ovacado. anything ovacado relaaated leaves me salivating