Southwestern Salad with Grilled Steak

Southwestern Salad with tender slices of grilled steak is a quick and easy meal for nights you don’t feel like cooking. The mix of lettuce with sweet summer corn, creamy avocado, hearty canned kidney beans and a smoky honey-lime dressing is an irresistible combination. adds the perfect zesty kick to this steak salad. This salad feeds the whole family, and you won’t have leftovers!

Composed salads can make delicious meals that are simple enough for busy weeknights and fancy enough for company. With combinations like spinach and bacon in this fried goat cheese salad or juicy fresh summer fruit and seasoned torn croutons in this peach and baby kale salad.

This crowd-pleasing steak salad has a gorgeous array of Southwestern flavors, bold colors, and textures that will make you hungry with anticipation.

Why this recipe works:

• You can use any type of steak you like.
• Adding slices of grilled steak to this Southwestern salad stretches the meat (instead of buying individual steaks for all your diners) – considering the price of beef, that’s a good thing.
• It’s easy to customize with what you have on hand.
• You can easily halve or double the recipe according to how many mouths you’re feeding.
• The only cooking is the steak, which can be done outside on the grill — so you won’t heat up the whole house.
• Uses a combination of fresh and canned items for the Southwestern salad.

Ingredients:

• Grilled Steak (this Southwestern salad works well with ribeyes, strip steaks, thinly sliced flank, or skirt steak).
• Lettuce – we used red leaf, but you can also use green leaf, Bibb, Romaine lettuce, or a mesclun or spring mix. Even chopped iceberg lettuce is fine.
• Canned Kidney Beans – Rinsed and drained, the beans add fiber and heft to the Southwest salad recipe. If you don’t have kidney beans, you can substitute other canned beans, like black beans, chickpeas or pinto beans.
• Cherry Tomatoes – Adds a juicy bite to the steak and salad. You can also use grape tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, heirlooms or other varietals.
• Fresh Corn – we take it off the cob and sprinkle the fresh kernels over the steak salad.
• Persian Cucumbers – are shorter than English cucumbers (usually about 6″ in length, with 1″ diameter. These cucumbers are virtually seedless and add freshness and crunch to this steak salad recipe.
• Red Onion – adds color and a sharp bite to contrast with the other flavors.
• Haas Avocado – Mostly cultivated in Mexico or California, the Haas avocado is smooth and buttery. You can also use the larger Florida avocado (skinnycado), but it doesn’t have the same flavor or mouthfeel to me).
• Jammy Eggs – these are boiled eggs that are cooked just long enough for the whites to set and the yolks to be soft and oozy. I like to augment salads with eggs to add another source of protein and for the visual impact!
• Red Chilies – to add a spicy kick. Depending on your heat tolerance, you can use larger chilies, which tend to be milder or smaller for a fiery tingle. Feel free to use jalapenos or serranos too.
• Queso Fresco – is a fresh Mexican cheese with a salty, tangy, mild sweetness. It’s great crumbled over salads, to top tacos or even eggs.
• Cilantro – Fresh cilantro leaves add freshness to the salad.
• Smoky Honey Lime Dressing – I use this simple homemade salad dressing made with lime juice, garlic, honey, cumin, chili powder and whole grain mustard to tie the flavors of this Southwestern Salad together. You can make it in about 5 minutes; any leftovers will last a week or more.

For the steak:

I’m not particular about the type of steak you use for this salad. It can be a flank steak, skirt steak, New York Strip, ribeye, porterhouse, sirloin, or whatever you like. They will all work here. Just avoid tough cuts of beef like Chuck.

While you heat the grill or a cast iron skillet, season the beef with a liberal amount of your favorite seasoning. You can use salt and pepper, Montreal steak seasoning, or a BBQ rub. Grill or sear the meat to your desired doneness (using a meat thermometer (affiliate link) will ensure it’s the right temperature.) (Check the recipe card below for temperatures that correspond to steak doneness levels).

By the way, I made this steak salad using a leftover ribeye that I tented with tin foil and warmed in a 300° oven. (if you want to know how I ended up with a whole leftover steak — we were having a dinner party and overestimated the amount of meat we needed for the crowd, ending up with a spare steak).

Instead of dumping the ingredients into a bowl to toss, I prefer to arrange the ingredients for the Southwestern salad on a large platter, ensuring plenty of each component is evenly distributed on the platter.

Visually, the presentation is invitingly mouthwatering, setting this Southwestern salad apart from other boring green salads.

How to assemble the steak salad:

1. Arrange the lettuce in a bed on a large serving platter. I. like to let the frilly edges of the lettuce hang slightly over the sides so you don’t even see the plate. It will give the appearance of a bounty.
2. To create the base layer, begin topping the lettuce with kidney beans, sliced cucumber, tomato, corn and onion.
3. Slice the steak into ¼” slices (cut the grilled steak across the grain to keep the meat tender). Arrange 3-4 pieces of steak in clusters around the platter. I usually make as many clusters as I have diners, essentially creating a “serving” for each individual, so there’s no need to pick and pull from across the platter.
4. Fill in any gaps with additional beans, cucumber, tomato, corn and onion, then add the eye-candy bits: jammy eggs, sliced avocado and crumbled queso fresco.
5. Sprinkle the salad with hot chili peppers and drizzle about half the Southwest salad dressing over the platter.
6. Serve any remaining sauce on the side so your diners can add more.

Variations and Swaps:

• Add crispy fried tortilla strips or lightly crumbled tortilla chips as a crunchy garnish.
• Add diced sweet red bell pepper for more color and crunch.
• Swap the steak for grilled or rotisserie chicken breast, grilled smoked sausages, steamed shrimp, calamari or pan-seared halloumi.
• Swap the queso fresco for crumbled blue cheese in the steak salad.
• Instead of raw corn, grill the corn on the cob when you cook the steak, then cut the kernels from the cob for a bit of charred flavor.
• Swap red kidney beans for black beans or garbanzo beans.
• Add fresh herbs to the salad, including cilantro, chives, parsley or (very sparingly) fresh oregano.
• Try other dressings like my homemade buttermilk ranch dressing, lemon vinaigrette or chipotle ranch.
• Instead of queso fresco, grate cheddar cheese or Monterey jack and scatter over the steak salad.

FAQ’s

Composed salads like this one are all-in-one meals, generally speaking. However, we like having some crusty bread to sop up the extra dressing. Here are some of our favorites:

What goes with steak salad:

• Cheddar Chive Popovers
• Easy 3-Ingredient Drop Biscuits
• Refrigerator Rolls
• Soft Parmesan Dinner Rolls
• Hatch Green Chili Bread

More southwestern recipes you’ll love:

• Southwest Style Cowboy Casserole
• Easy Hatch Green Chile Sauce
• Chili Cheese Southwest Omelette
• Hatch Chile Grilled Chicken Wings
• Southwestern Chicken Taco Soup
• Hatch Chile Pork Empanadas
• Southwestern Style Leftover Turkey Casserole
• Hatch Chile Breakfast Strata
• Pulled Pork Casserole
• Hatch Green Chile Pulled Pork

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