Name: Mexican Chicken and Rice Salad
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 6
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)

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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!