turkey taco salad

This salad is PERFECT for having delicious healthy leftovers on hand.  My mom put it together while we were staying with her, and sent me home with the leftovers.  I ate it the following three days (once for dinner, twice for lunch) and would have happily ate it several more.

I'm going to include the recipe exactly as written, but I didn't eat it that way.  Personally, I didn't need the tortilla chips.  The first night we had it I made my own 'chips' from a La Tortilla Factory tortilla in the oven.  But the next three days I did just fine without them.  Also, the first night I just used some fat free sour cream as my 'dressing' (no salsa), but with the leftovers I used Trader Joe's cilantro salad dressing.  I also used Monterey Jack cheese with the leftovers.  Seriously, amazing.  Oh and I didn't have any avocado in my leftovers, and I was totally ok with that too.  So more or less this is a recipe you can easily tweak to your liking, but the base is a great healthy thing to have on hand!

Turkey Taco Salad (serves 8)
from Weight Watchers 20 Minute Recipes, spring 2009

*Prepare and measure all of the components first, and assemble the salad just before serving to keep the lettuce and chips crisp.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground turkey breast
• 2 tablespoons 40%-less-sodium taco seasoning
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (15-ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced ripe olives, drained
• 1 small avocado peeled and diced
• 1 cup refrigerated fresh salsa
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 8 ounces light tortilla chips
• 1 (10-ounce) package torn romaine lettuce (about 8 cups)
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) preshredded reduced fat 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese

Directions

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until hot.  Add turkey; cook 7 minutes or until browned, stirring to crumble.  Drain, if necessary, and return turkey to pan.  Stir in taco seasoning and 2 tablespoons water; cook 1 minute.
2. Combine turkey mixture, tomato, and next 4 ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Combine salsa and sour cream in a small bowl.
4. To serve, place 6 chips on each of 8 plates; top chips evenly with lettuce, turkey mixture and cheese.  Serve with sour cream mixture.

One serving had 355 calories.  A serving includes 6 chips, about 1 cup lettuce, 3/4 cup turkey mixture, 1 tablespoon cheese, and 3 tablespoons sour cream mixture.

So basically, we just did steps one and two (minus adding avocado to the mix, my mom doesn't like it, so I just put it on mine), and kept that mix separate.  From there you can pretty much make your taco salad however you like it.  And I just heated up the mix in the microwave when eating it leftover, then mixed in my lettuce, cheese and what not.  So good!!

Enjoy!