Mexican Vinaigrette Salad

If you love salads and Mexican food (like I do) you'll appreciate this recipe. I was inspired by a local chain of Mexican restaurants in the Seattle area called Acapulco Fresh. Their Mexican vinaigrette salad is the only thing I order when I'm there. So here's my version of a Mexican vinaigrette salad.

There's a bit of prep work involved here, but once you have the salsa, dressing, and salad ingredients made, it's so simple to combine. And all the essential ingredients can be stored in the refrigerator until you're ready to eat. The only thing I like to prepare right before I eat is the guacamole - mostly to prevent it from turning brown. You can prevent guacamole from turning brown (due to exposure to air) by adding lemon (or lime juice) and sealing it well.

You can make this salad as heavy or light as you like. I always have guacamole with it, but you can also add beans, sour cream or yogurt, and other kinds of salsas on top. And of course adding a pile of chips does the trick too. The chip in the photo is made of corn (which is gluten free but not grain free), so for a grain-free chip, try either my cheese chip I included below, or my nacho cheese chip recipe.

If you don't like pineapple in your salsa, just remove it and the honey from the salsa recipe and you'll have a straight-up fresh salsa. And of course, feel free to add other spicy stuff to this salsa - I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to spicy stuff, but I can see adding jalapeno pepper or a sprinkle of chipotle powder.

Another thing I do sometimes is lightly saute the salad ingredients (not the lettuce or guacamole though) in some salt and olive oil to have a slightly warm salad. Kind of like having a vegetable fajita.