Santa Fe Salad with Cilantro-Lime-Peanut Vinaigrette

Day one of cooking and I am already craving the Cheesecake Factory. The Southwest chicken salad (sans the chicken and cheese) to be exact. So what's a girl to do? Google it! I got this vinaigrette recipe from gimme some OVEN and with a few tweaks it turned out incredible. Now if I can just talk my husband into being tonights dishwasher…..

Total Time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 (Except if you are my husband and I because we ate the whole thing.)

Ingredients:

1 head of romaine lettuce
1 (15oz) can black beans, rinsed
1 (15oz) can whole kernel corn, rinsed
1 cup fresh cilantro, stems off
1 green pepper
1 jalapeño, seeds removed
2 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

Cilantro-Lime-Peanut Vinaigrette Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, stems off
1/4 cup peanut butter
3 cloves garlic peeled and smashed
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1tsp. lime zest
1tsp sesame oil

Method:

To make the vinaigrette, mix all of the ingredients except olive oil in the food processor. Then slowly add olive oil to the mixture while pulsing until smooth. Shown here by my lovely suez chef Alice.

* I found this recipe to be super thick so I added 3/4 a cup of water into the food processor while pulsing. Also, I would only add half of the sesame oil next time. It was a bit strong. Nothing a little tabasco couldn't fix.

To prepare salad, wash and dry the lettuce, then cut into bite size pieces. Mix in chopped cilantro, corn, beans, cabbage, jalapeño, green pepper and red onion. Fold in the vinaigrette and top with tortilla strips.  

¡Olé!