Southwest Chicken Salad with Sweet Potato Fries

This post is brought to you courtesy of your friends at NatureRaised Farms® & Alexia® but all the opinions and content are mine.

Around this time of year I am left craving salads morning, noon and night. After months of holiday themed comfort foods and desserts and the impending birthday season that last from January through August in our home – salads sound like the perfect alternative.

One person in my family who is wonderful at whipping up an amazing salad out of scraps is my mother in law. Her salads are always perfect. Just the right amount of everything, cut just the right size and with all the right colors. Always delicious, ALWAYS.

So one of my goals this year is to eat more salads. Try different greens and lettuce and also a variety of mix-ins. I tend to make the same type of salad often, and I want to get out of that funk. I love salads with crumbly blue cheese, so I thought that would be a great starting point. I also recently discovered the Target Cartwheel app and when I saw that both the Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries and the NatureRaised Farms® Chicken were both listed on the app for 15% off with the purchase of goods at Target, I knew I had to pick them up too for a new, epic salad.

I picked up a baby spring/baby spinach blend for the greens and thought it would pair well with the NatureRaised Farms® Southern Style Crispy Chicken Strips and Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries, along with some corn, black beans, cherry tomatoes, avocado, hard-boiled egg, avocado, and of course my beloved blue cheese crumbles. It’s sort of a southwestern Cobb salad hybrid, so I knew I had to get a bit creative with the dressing. I wanted something that complimented all of the flavors without being overbearing… but with a kick of flavor.

I played around and mixed some ranch with buffalo wing sauce and knew that was the winning combo. It was so perfect and my whole family wanted bites off my lunch plate. Score!

Now I know the salad looks tasty, but you might scrunch your nose at the idea of fries in a salad. But really, it’s no different than croutons or tortilla strips. It’s actually better though, because the fries are sweet potato fries that lend a bit of sweetness to the plate. Since Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries and NatureRaised Farms® Chicken products are both all-natural and basically farm to table products. The NatureRaised Farms® Chicken is fed a 100% Vegetarian Diet  with no animal protein or bakery by-products as well as no added hormones. They are also certified by third-party independent animal welfare agencies. Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries are made with all-natural ingredients and only the best produce is harvested from the farms. Both of these items will lend a tasty approach to your salads and your dinner table!

Ingredients for Southwest Chicken Salad with Sweet Potato Fries:

• 3 NatureRaised Farms® Southern Style Crispy Chicken Strips
• 1/2 cup Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries
• 1 cup Baby Spring Mix with Baby Spinach
• 2 tablespoons black beans
• 2 tablespoons yellow corn
• 1/2 cup cherry tomatoes
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 1/4 small avocado, sliced
• 1 tablespoon crumbled blue cheese
• juice from 2 lemon wedges

Ingredients for Buffalo Ranch Dressing

• 1/4 cup buttermilk ranch dressing
• 2 tablespoons buffalo wing sauce

Directions:

Begin by preparing both the NatureRaised Farms® Southern Style Crispy Chicken Strips and the Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries according to package instructions. While they are cooking, wash and spin your greens and slice up your avocado and hard-boil your egg.

Add the greens to your plate and frame them with the Sweet Potato Fries.

Add the chicken.

Then add the black beans, corn and tomatoes.

Slice up the hard-boiled egg and add to the salad.

Then add the avocado slices.

Finish it off with the crumbled blue cheese.

In a small mixing bowl combine the ranch with the Buffalo wing sauce.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad and refrigerate the extra. Enjoy!

Alexia® Sweet Potato Fries and NatureRaised Farms® Chicken can both be found in the freezer section of your local Target store, as shown in this photo!

Do you like to create interesting and different salads?

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of NatureRaised Farms® and Alexia®. The opinions and text are all mine.