Beef Taco Salad with Salsa-Ranch Dressing
This Beef Taco Salad with Salsa-Ranch Dressing makes satisfying entrée-sized salads that are chock full of hearty, flavorful ingredients. On each serving of this salad, fresh lettuce is topped with a whole ½ cup of seasoned taco meat along with sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, buttery avocado, crispy tortilla strips, and a creamy salsa-ranch dressing. This is no wimpy salad, it’s definitely a full meal! When I first made this, my husband ate a serving and then said “well that was a very meaty and substantial salad!” Plus, you’re going to want to put this 4-ingredient salsa-ranch dressing on everything. Trust me.
Not only is this tasty and filling Beef Taco Salad with Salsa-Ranch Dressing easy to make and delicious to eat, but each satisfying serving is just 395 calories or 6 WW Points! To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app, click here.
Recipe Notes
- Meat: I use lean ground beef in this recipe, and I really think it makes the best taco meat! I suggest using between 90-95% lean ground beef, but if you prefer you can substitute ground chicken or ground turkey and it will still be tasty.
- Lettuce: I almost always use green leaf lettuce for salads and as sandwich and burger toppings, and that’s what I used for this taco salad! I think romaine would also be great, or if you have a bagged salad mix or another type of lettuce, that should work as well.
- Corn: I always have a bag of frozen corn in my freezer, so it’s easy for me to set some out to defrost to use in this recipe. If you have canned corn, you could definitely drain that and use it instead, or if you have fresh corn you could cook it to use as well. Use what is most convenient for you!
- Tomatoes: I like to buy cherry tomatoes for salads because I just think they cut up nicely into small chunks, but you can use whatever type of tomatoes you have on hand!
- Tortilla Strips: I usually find bagged tortilla strips near the croutons and other salad toppings at my local grocery store. The brand I used here is Fresh Gourmet. If you have trouble finding them, then crushed up tortilla chips would be a good substitute!
- Leftovers: If you’re not planning to serve/eat all four servings of this salad at once, I suggest building the ones you plan to serve and then storing all the ingredients separately. If you toss all the ingredients together and add in the dressing the leftover salad will get soggy. The best way to maintain freshness and have a delicious salad every time is to keep the ingredients separate and then build each salad when you plan to eat it.
More Tasty, Lightened-Up Salad Recipes
For more light and tasty salad recipes, check out my Doritos Taco Salad, Southwest Steak Salad, Buffalo Roasted Chickpea Salad, Black and Blue Steak Salad, Corn and Tomato Salad, Mediterranean Couscous Salad, Mexican Street Corn Chicken Salad, Cobb Salad, Superfood Salad, Barbecue Ranch Chicken Salad, Thai Chicken Chopped Salad with Peanut Dressing, Strawberry Steak Salad, Broccoli Salad, Avocado Bacon Corn Panzanella Salad, Butternut Squash Quinoa Salad, Antipasto Salad, Harvest Apple Salad, Greek Orzo Pasta Salad, Chicken Souvlaki Salad and many more in the salad section of my recipe index!
Beef Taco Salad with Salsa-Ranch Dressing
Ingredients
- ¼ cup light mayonnaise, (I use Hellmann’s light)
- 2 tablespoons ranch dressing, (I use Hidden Valley)
- 2 tablespoons salsa
- 1 oz packet of taco seasoning, divided
- 1 lb uncooked lean ground beef, between 90-95% lean (I used 93% lean)
- ⅔ cup water
- 12 cups chopped lettuce, (I use green leaf lettuce)
- ¾ cup chopped tomatoes, (I use cherry tomatoes)
- ¾ cup frozen corn kernels, defrosted to room temperature (drained canned corn would also work)
- 4 oz ripe avocado, chopped
- 8 tablespoons tortilla strips, (found by the croutons/salad toppings)
Instructions
- In a small mixing bowl, stir together the mayonnaise, ranch dressing, salsa, and 2 teaspoons of the taco seasoning until well combined to make the salsa-ranch dressing. Set aside.
- Lightly mist a large skillet with cooking spray and bring over medium-high heat. When hot, add the ground beef and cook, stirring occasionally and breaking up into small chunks with a cooking spatula, for 5-6 minutes until browned. Drain any liquid if present. Add the remainder of the taco seasoning packet and water and stir into the meat until well combined. Once the mixture is bubbling, reduce the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes until the liquid has thickened into sauce.
- To build each salad, fill a salad bowl with 3 cups of lettuce. Add two tablespoons of the salsa-ranch dressing from step one to the lettuce and stir to coat the lettuce in the dressing. Add 3 tablespoons of tomatoes, 3 tablespoons of corn, 1 ounce of chopped avocado, and 2 tablespoons of tortilla strips, along with ½ cup of the taco meat. Toss together until combined and serve immediately.**If you don’t plan on serving all four salads at once, store the extra ingredients separately and build each salad when ready to serve.
Notes
395 calories, 23 g carbs, 5 g sugars, 21 g fat, 5 g saturated fat, 27 g protein, 4 g fiber, 694 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com) Weight Watchers Points Plus:
10 per salad (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info)
This looks delicious. For the ranch dressng, did you use the powdered mix or an actual liquid dressing?
The dressing, not the powder!
Is Ranch the powder one or the one in jar? I want to make this tonight!
The dressing, not the powder! I hope you love it!
Made this today – very good. I always want to make taco salad but never know what to dress it with. I like how you gave exact measurements for each serving so thank you!
I’m so happy you liked it, Shannon!