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This salad has been on my mind for a while now, ever since I tried the Santa Fe Salad at Earl’s restaurant about two weeks ago. The salad was the ending to a busy but lovely evening of shopping with my children for birthday presents for Mr Magpie.
We went to THE MALL.
I’m sure every city has THE MALL, but here in Edmonton we are (or perhaps used to be?) famous for West Edmonton Mall.
We locals don’t usually shop there unless we need a plethora of stores to choose from. Which, in my language, meant that I had no idea what to get Mike for his birthday and I needed to wander a place that had a bazillion choices for me.
So off to THE MALL we went, right after school one Tuesday evening. By the time we had found comic t-shirts (he’s so easy to please) and new ear phones for his trip (which he *ahem* left at home during his trip to Amsterdam) and assorted other goodies, we were starving like feral wolverines.
We rarely eat at Earls seeing how there is no kids menu and my daughter is a picky eater. Actually,change the rarely to never. I haven’t eaten there in years.
The salad caught my eye right away, I love a good Sante Fe salad but this one, oh, this one had dates init. Immediately my sweet/savoury loving taste buds perked right up with interest and sealed the deal.
While this isn’t an exact copy – I changed the chicken to a Tex Mex spice instead of cajun and the dressing is less oily/garlicky- the base is there. I preferred my creamy avocado dressing to the peanut oil type one they have on it and I left out the tortilla chips. It was far less greasy this way, the one in the restaurant is almost too.. oily. KWIM?
You can change the chicken to Cajun spiced if you want, but I loved the Tex Mex.
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I also left the goat cheese off of my salad as I wanted it completely dairy free, but Mike’s had the goat cheese and it’s a spectacular addition flavor-wise. This salad is so adaptable to your tastes!
Thanks for stopping in everyone!
Love you more than chocolate,
Karlynn
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Copycat Earl's Santa Fe Salad
- Prep Time
- 10 minutes
- Total Time
- 10 minutes
- Course
- Salad
- Cuisine
- American
- Servings
- 4
- Calories
- 560
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- 1 cup of black beans
- 1 cup of corn
- 1/3 cup of chopped dates
- 6 cups of shredded romaine lettuce
- 5-6 tablespoons of my Homemade Honey Lime & Garlic Avocado Dressing
- 2 cooked chicken breasts seasoned with Tex Mex Seasoning
- 1 avocado chopped and divided into two
- 1/3 cup goat cheese
- 1 cup of tortilla chip strips or broken tortillas optional I prefer without
Instructions
- Combine beans, corn, dates, lettuce and dressing in a large bowl. Divide onto two plates.
- Slice the chicken breast into strips and place on top of salad.
- Place avocado on top.
- Sprinkle goat cheese and tortilla strips on top.
- Serving with a little extra dressing drizzled over the chicken breast.
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
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Megan says
No link to the dressing recipe