Last updated on November 5th, 2018 at 11:44 am
Mexican Chicken and Rice Salad – a fresh summer salad loaded with black beans, chicken, corn and rice. Totally addicting and makes the perfect dinner for a busy weeknight.
Hubs and I are salad people, not because we’re healthy eaters or anything, we’re far from that, but because we just love salads, especially hubs. Not only does he love eating salads, but he’s a salad connoisseur. He makes the best salads, hands down. He’ll try all kinds of weird combinations and somehow they always work. We eat our salads though as side dishes, not as main dishes, so he’d normally make one of his famous salads along with a good steak or something.
But this salad, my friends, he cannot take credit for because I made it all by myself. I’ve been craving Mexican food for the past week, and I even made some taquitos when my sister was here visiting on Saturday, but I was still craving it.
I love Mexican food, I could eat it every single day for breakfast lunch and dinner. Must be the Latin blood in me. This salad though is so refreshing and so delicious, you’ll love it.
So I guess you could say I dreamt about this salad last night. I wanted to add rice because I wanted it to be more hearty, more like a meal than just a plain old boring salad. Then I threw in all ingredients that scream Mexican to me. Cooked my own chicken with some taco seasoning, you could use roasted chicken breast if you want to save on time, but I love the flavor from the taco seasoning so I cooked it myself. I also added loads of cilantro. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now you probably know I used to hate cilantro. That’s changed. I now love cilantro, and you can’t have Mexican food without cilantro.
Seriously, you can’t.
But let’s talk about this cheese here, queso duro cheese. It’s the first time I used it. I actually bought it a while ago when I was actually looking for queso fresco and couldn’t find it but found this instead. Completely different than queso fresco though. Queso duro is a hard cheese, so you’ll have to use a grater to shred it. It’s quite salty and strong flavored and has a mild smoky taste. I love it! If you can’t find it or couldn’t be bothered with it, you could use cheddar cheese or even feta cheese would work great with this salad, or even queso fresco.
This salad is so great, if you want you can add some hot sauce to it for a bit of a kick. But it’s an easy salad to make, and it’s perfect for a busy weeknight. It’s even great to make ahead and bring to a picnic or a pot luck.
If you try this recipe, please let us know! Leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #jocooks on Instagram so we can see it. I always love to see what you guys come up with!
Mexican Chicken and Rice Salad
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 lb chicken breasts skinless and boneless, cut into small pieces
- 3 tbsp taco seasoning
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 1/2 cups rice cooked (I used basmati)
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes chopped
- 1 cup black beans
- 6 green onions chopped
- 1 cup queso duro shredded
- 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
- 2 tbsp lemon juice freshly squeezed
- 1 tbsp lime juice freshly squeezed
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 avocado optional
- 1/4 tsp salt or ot taste
- 1/2 tsp pepper or to taste
Instructions
- Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a non stick skillet over medium high heat. Season the chicken with the taco seasoning, add more if you want it spicier, and add chicken to skillet. Cook the chicken for about 10 minutes until cooked through and starts to slightly brown. Remove chicken from skillet.
- To the same skillet add the corn and cook over high heat just until it starts to char a little bit, no more than 2 minutes.
- Add all ingredients to a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and toss.
- Serve either warm or cold.
Notes
- If you don't have queso duro cheese, you can use cheddar cheese.
- Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
- Please keep in mind that nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary greatly based on products used.
Nutrition
Other summer salads you might enjoy:
I made this for dinner last night and it’s the best thing I’ve made in a while. I’ve been buying precooked basmati from Costco; just sautée it with water for a few minutes. It came together so quickly. The perfect weeknight post-tennis (or workout) meal. Love your recipes!
That’s so great! We love that you love this recipe 🙂
I am a little confused with some of the ingredients. What is the 2nd 2 T of oil for, to add to the pan to char the corn? Am I to assure the 1 1/2 cups of rice is the measurement before it is cooked? And, do you chop the whole green onion or just the green part? Really looking forward to making this.
Hi Janet, beside the measurement of rice in the recipe it says “cooked (I used basmati)”. For the oil, the first tbsp is to cook the chicken breasts and the last 2 tbsp is used to make the dressing for the salad. I hope this helps!
Incredible and Amazing is what we think. Last two dishes we tried were just not for us, although it could have been the cook… We didn’t have green peppers so used jalapeno peppers.. well, they are green. Used fresh cooked brown rice and two cups of black beans. Chicken breast was left over from grilling the night before. Tossed the hot and cold together and .. still cannot believe how great it tasted. Friends over last night and served the remainder straight from the fridge. Same results!!
I love Mexican food. This is the most daring, the most courageous cooking, I think that everyone will agree with me.
Great salad! I’ll cook, but not now. 🙂 Now I’m on a diet, so if you recommend a good low-calorie recipes, I’ll be very grateful to you!
Try some of these! https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/?fwp_type=healthy-eating
I made this today for my lunches this week. It is so good. thank you for the recipe. Pretty easy recipe too.