Chopped Taco Salad with Homemade Catalina Dressing
This chopped taco salad with homemade catalina dressing comes together in less than 30 minutes and is the perfect light and refreshing meal for the heat of summer.
I have a super duper huge crush on taco salad.
As in, I could eat it every night of my life and be totally ok with it. It’s kind of like this secret hidden craving-slash-confession I’ve been dying to share with you. Thanks for letting me get it out there.
I hunt it out at potlucks and try to throw it in our menu plan more often than is probably ethical.
I’m positively gushy about taco salad, but seriously, after you try this chopped version with homemade catalina dressing, you might be just as gushy as I.
Solidarity in gushiness? Or not.
As if the taste-factor (which is off the charts good) isn’t enough, this meal comes together in less than 30 minutes and is perfect light and refreshing meal for the blazing heat of summer (confession: we eat it all winter, too).
It’s basically a big honkin’ plate full of color and flavor and love and taco salad goodness. And the gargantuan plate you see here? That’s my itty bitty little serving cause I’m all about portion control.
If you are stressed about serving a main dish salad to kids, my tactic is to serve the salad with a platter of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as a crusty roll (or other type of heavily sought after carb) and often cottage cheese on the side.
My kids actually really like the commotion of this salad and kind of pick their way through it, eating their favorite parts and scooping up the rest with their rolls. It’s a pretty difficult salad to resist whether you are a kid or not.
What to Serve With This
- Fresh fruit
- French bread rolls
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Chopped Taco Salad with Homemade Catalina Dressing
Ingredients
Salad:
- 1/2-1 pound ground turkey or beef
- ½ head romaine lettuce, chopped
- ½ head iceberg lettuce, chopped
- ½ cup cilantro chopped
- 1 cup cubed, small cheese, cheddar, Monterey Jack, Pepper Jack, etc.
- 1 cup frozen or fresh corn kernels, thawed if frozen
- 1 (6-ounce) can olives, chopped
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 roma or plum tomatoes, chopped
- 1-2 avocados, chopped
- Crushed tortilla chips
Dressing:
- ¼ cup ketchup (see note)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- ¼ cup onion finely chopped
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large, nonstick skillet, brown the ground turkey or beef with salt and pepper (about 1 teaspoon of each) until cooked through, breaking up the meat into bite-size pieces as it cooks. Drain excess grease if needed. Scrape the meat onto a paper towel-lined plate and set aside to cool a bit.
- For the dressing, combine all the dressing ingredients together in a blender and process until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to serve. The dressing can be made up 3-4 days in advance.
- In a large bowl, toss all the salad ingredients together (including the cooled meat) except the crushed tortilla tips.
- Serve the salad with the dressing and crushed tortilla tips.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: salad from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, dressing slightly adapted from Kitchen Simplicity (used olive oil instead of canola oil)
Delicious salad – this was a big hit with the family last night. My husband isn’t a big fan of cilantro but he remarked that its addition to the salad added a really nice flavor. I used a mixture of pepper jack and Colby cheese and added taco seasoning to the meat, really delicious! Thank you for this one, it’s on my make-it-again list
How far ahead can this be made?
As long as all the components are kept separate, it can be prepped 1-2 days ahead of time.
I made this last night after seeing it on your “Recipes the World Forgot About” post. I was already planning on making your turkey tacos (which I make weekly and are the best) so I used that meat for the salad. My family was skeptical bc they were expecting their normal tacos but oh my goodness we all went crazy for this recipe! The dressing was delicious and paired perfect with the flavor of the salad.
I’m so happy to hear this, Gilliane!! Yay!
The Catalina dressing was absolutely delicious! Thank you for sharing!
I have been making a taco salad for myself for lunch every so often and had been using store bought Catalina dressing. I didn’t really like the taste though and wasn’t sure what other kind of dressing I should use. Today as I was whipping one up one of my yummy salads, I remembered seeing your recipe to make Catalina homemade. It was sooooo good!! Tastes so different than the store stuff. It made my salad very delicious and without the additives of dressing you buy at the store. A win win! The onion I used was pretty strong so my mouth tastes like a big onion now, but it is worth it! Thanks for the recipe!
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We add chorizo to our hamburger meat. SO good!
I made this for dinner last night and we just loved it. I upped the turkey to 1.25 pounds and thought it was just fabulous with the salt and pepper. The dressing gave everything else so much flavor. My oldest is graduating high school this Thursday so we are in need of easy and quick meals this week and this was perfect!
I made this recipe for my family during a particularly hot day and it was a big hit! Even my ranch dressing loving husband gobbled it up.
Made this recipe last year and again today! Loved it! Used taco seasoning in meat. Scratched iceberg only because with 2 in the house we don’t eat a lot of lettuce. No avocado my only one was bad. Loved the dressing.
Oh and I didn’t grow up on Catalina dressing so I don’t know it’s flavor… However I truly enjoyed it and thought it paired well with the salad ingredients.
Mel, I have to say that this homemade Catalina dressing is a game-changer for my family! I grew up eating taco salad with Catalina dressing but I had never made the dressing before… I threw together my family’s basic taco salad using this dressing recipe and it was spectacular–my husband and kids really loved it and my husband commented more than once on how much better this homemade version is.
Many of your recipes have become my “go-tos”. Thank you for the time and effort you put into the things that you do–it’s so appreciated.
Thank you, Tristin – that means a lot!
Awesome recipe!!! Try adding taco seasoning to your meat. We grew up on this in Texas in the 80’s.
Hey, Mel! I read another male poster’s comment and got inspired to finally sing your praises. I stumbled upon your blog a few months ago, and now I make your recipes 3-4 nights a week. I made this taco salad last night, and it is, in fact, the bomb (almost as good as the curry nachos with mango salsa). From now on, I will holler whenever I make a recipe! You deserve to know how awesome they are.
(P.S. – My family eats croutons with everything now.)
Oh, thanks Sidney! Loved your comment!
Made this in Rwanda last night, and it was awesome. It was just what my mother made in the 90’s for us and now that we live so far from convenient stores, I am thankful for every scratch recipe I can get! Love it, as did my kids and husband. Thank you.
This is a wonderful taco salad. I added some chile powder and cumin to the ground beef to give it a bit of an extra lift. The dressing is delicious and can be made ahead, making final dinner prep that much easier. I definitely recommend this recipe.
I finally tried this recipe last night. I wasn’t too sure my family would like it, but i was wrong. My husband who is not a fan of taco salad liked it and said he would like it again. Normally when i make taco salads, he says I just am not a fan of this. But this was really good and so easy to make. I will be adding this to my recipe book for the future. Thanks for all the great recipes. Makes me keep wanting to come back for more and see what else you have in store for us!
I really enjoyed this chopped salad! Thought the dressing went nicely with the salad. I added too much lettuce! Didn’t have tomatoes!
I REALLY wish people who leave comments would leave REVIEWS. All those other words are meaningless. I made this dressing last night; actually found the recipe on several other sights. I added honey and granulated garlic (or garlic powder). I love that I can have my go-to dressing without HFCS. As the author of this blog said, I, too use a ketchup (Simply Heinz) that also has no HFCS.
The home made salad dressing was just okay….if you are expecting it ti taste like Catelina you will be sadly disappointed……….
Like all your recipes, and to add to all of the above, this was perfect and delicious. Thank you!