Healthy Southwest Chicken Salad Recipe with Creamy Dressing

This southwest chicken salad packs tons of flavor into a meal-sized salad that is also simple to make. Seasoned chicken, avocado, black beans, and corn are tossed together with a creamy Greek yogurt-based southwest dressing. 

Feeling bored of your go-to salad recipes? Spice things up with this southwest chicken salad! This salad seriously has it all – seasoned chicken, tons of veggies, tortilla chips for crunch, and a delicious creamy dressing made from Greek yogurt. 

This one is also meal prep friendly – which is always a win in my book.

You can prep the chicken and dressing in advance as well as pre-chop all the veggies. Such a lifesaver when you need to get something on the table quickly for dinner or even a work-from-home lunch.

For even more nutritious recipe ideas, check out my full list of healthy salad recipes!

Ingredients for Southwest Chicken Salad

Use these simple and fresh ingredients packed with nutritional value to make this delicious southwest chicken salad recipe. Be sure to check out the recipe card for the exact amounts of each ingredient you’ll need. 

• Chicken: boneless skinless chicken breasts are one of our go-to lean protein sources for salads like this one. You can also use leftover chicken or pick up a rotisserie chicken if you want to speed up the prep for this salad. 
• Seasoning (chili powder, cumin, garlic): to add lots of flavor to the chicken, you’ll add all these spices before baking. You can substitute with 1 tablespoon of taco seasoning if you’d prefer. 
• Romaine Lettuce: I love the crunch of the romaine for chopped salads like this one, but you can use other greens like iceberg lettuce, spring mix, or spinach.
• Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, Bell Pepper, Red Onion, Avocado:  a classic combination of veggies that is perfect for this southwest chicken salad. Feel free to omit any that you don’t like or try others like green onion or cooked zucchini. 
• Black Beans: add extra protein as well as fiber to this filling meal-sized salad. 
• Tortilla Chips: love the added crunch of some crumbled tortilla chips on salads like this one. If you can find tortilla strips – you can use those instead of chips.   
• Southwest Dressing: the homemade dressing for this salad is made extra creamy from Greek yogurt. You just toss it into a small blender with salsa, lime juice, cilantro, honey, cumin, and salt. 

Variations

• Make it Vegetarian/Vegan: skip the chicken and add more black beans to make it vegetarian. For the vegan version, you’ll also need to replace the yogurt in the southwest dressing with a plain, dairy free yogurt. 
• Add a different protein: you can easily use the same spice blend on some salmon for this salad instead of chicken. 
• Make it gluten free: this recipe is gluten free as written as long as you double check that your tortilla chips are certified gluten free (most are made without gluten).
• Make it a “chicken salad”: you can also make this like a chicken salad for a sandwich or wrap by tossing the chicken, corn, tomatoes, pepper, onion, and avocado in a bowl with the dressing. You can serve it over top of the romaine or wrap it up in a burrito.
• Try a different salad dressing: the chipotle dressing on this shrimp salad would also be delicious if you’re looking for another homemade dressing rather than store-bought. You could also try it with store-bought ranch dressing.

How to Make Southwestern Chicken Salad

This healthy southwest chicken salad recipe is simple to put together in a few steps. 

Make the Chicken: Add the chicken breasts to a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Combine the chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl and mix. Add the juice and zest of the lime to the chicken then sprinkle the spice blend onto the chicken and bake for 15-18 minutes or until cooked through. Allow to cool then dice the cooked chicken or use this chicken shredder tool to make it even easier!

Make the Dressing: To make the creamy dressing, add all the ingredients to a small blender and puree until smooth.

Assemble the Salads: Divide salad ingredients between four large bowls and serve. 

Meal Prep and Storage

Meal Prep: you can easily prep many of the elements of this salad in advance and then assemble when you’re ready to eat. You can make the chicken and the dressing 3-4 days in advance and store in an airtight container. The veggies can also be chopped 3-4 days in advance and stored in the fridge until ready to use.

Storage: this salad stores best with the dressing in a separate container. It will last about 3-4 days in the fridge (without dressing) or 1-2 days (with dressing).